# Matt Riley

> Matt Riley co-founded Swiftype (YC W12) in 2012, built it into a leading search-as-a-service platform, and sold it to Elastic in 2017. He then spent nearly eight years at Elastic as GVP & GM of Search, overseeing product, engineering, design, and developer relations for one of the world's most widely used search platforms. In late 2025, he returned to Y Combinator as a Visiting Partner - advising the next generation of founders using hard-won lessons from the full founder arc: zero to startup, startup to acquisition, acquisition to enterprise scale.

- **Role:** Visiting Partner at Y Combinator
- **Organizations:** Y Combinator, Elastic, Swiftype, Scribd
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BS in Electrical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, MS in Electrical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin
- **Known for:** Co-founded Swiftype (YC W12), raising $20M+ in venture funding from top-tier VCs including Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, Successfully led Swiftype to acquisition by Elastic in 2017, Rose to GVP & GM of Search at Elastic, leading the team that brought Elasticsearch to enterprise scale

## Career timeline

- **2008** — Published academic paper on text retrieval approach to content-based audio retrieval at ISMIR
- **2008-2011** — Senior Software Engineer then Director of Products at Scribd - climbed from engineer to product leadership in under 2 years
- **2010** — Received US Patent for integrated document viewer with automatic sharing of reading-related activities across social networks
- **2012** — Co-founded Swiftype with Quin Hoxie; admitted to Y Combinator Winter 2012 batch (YC W12)
- **2012** — Raised $1.7M seed round from Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, and Kleiner Perkins for Swiftype
- **2013** — Raised Series A from NEA for Swiftype
- **2015** — Raised $13M Series B from NEA (total funding: $20M+)
- **2017** — Swiftype acquired by Elastic in November 2017; joined Elastic as VP of Product, Enterprise Search
- **2017-2025** — Rose from VP of Product to GVP & GM of Search at Elastic, overseeing product, engineering, design, and developer relations for Elasticsearch and enterprise search
- **2023-2024** — Led Elastic's Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and AI search strategy; authored thought leadership pieces on vector search and LLM integration
- **2025** — Joined Y Combinator as Visiting Partner to advise early-stage startups during YC batches

## Achievements

- Co-founded Swiftype (YC W12), raising $20M+ in venture funding from top-tier VCs including Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins
- Successfully led Swiftype to acquisition by Elastic in 2017
- Rose to GVP & GM of Search at Elastic, leading the team that brought Elasticsearch to enterprise scale
- Led Elastic's AI search and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) product strategy
- Named to YC's roster of Visiting Partners - a highly selective honor reserved for experienced founders
- Patent holder for social reading technology (US Patent 20111258535, issued 2010)
- Published academic research on content-based audio retrieval at ISMIR 2008
- Oversaw product strategy that positioned Elastic in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Insight Engines

## Latest updates

- **2025-10** — Joined Y Combinator as Visiting Partner to advise startups in YC batches
- **2024-04** — Published thought leadership on generative AI experiences and machine learning models at Elastic
- **2023-12** — Appeared on Software in Blue Podcast discussing Vector Databases, LLMs, and Retrieval Augmented Generation
- **2023-11** — Published article on modern search workflows and generative AI applications

## Links

- Website: https://www.matthewriley.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewriley
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/matthewriley
- GitHub: https://github.com/mriley

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/matt-riley
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-09