Y Combinator Scraper – YC Companies, Founders & Jobs

Export the Y Combinator startup directory (ycombinator.com/companies) to a clean dataset: every YC company with website, one-liner, description, batch, status, industries, tags, regions, location, team size and hiring flag. Optionally add founders (name, title, bio, LinkedIn, X), social links (LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Crunchbase, GitHub) and open jobs (title, location, salary, equity, visa, skills) from each company's public YC page.

Built by Artificially | Follow us on X @artificially_io

Use with AI agents (MCP)

This actor works as a tool for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other AI agents through Apify's MCP server. Ask something like "list W25 fintech startups that are hiring, with their founders" and the agent calls it for you. Set compactOutput: true and a small maxResults (e.g. 20) so results fit easily in the agent's context.

Quick setup (sign in with your Apify account when asked):

• Claude (claude.ai or Claude Desktop): Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, and paste https://mcp.apify.com?tools=artificially/ycombinator-scraper
• Claude Code or Cursor via the Apify CLI (latest version, apify upgrade): apify mcp install claude-code --tools artificially/ycombinator-scraper (use cursor instead of claude-code for Cursor)
• Any MCP client (Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": { "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=artificially/ycombinator-scraper" }
  }
}

Try asking:

• "List YC W25 companies in B2B that are hiring, with founders and LinkedIn links."
• "Find Y Combinator AI agent startups and their open engineering jobs."

Why this actor

• The whole directory in seconds – all 6,000+ YC companies in under a minute, no browser and no proxy. The actor uses the same public search the YC website uses, so counts match what you see on ycombinator.com/companies.
• Every filter the website has – batch, industry, region, tag, status, team size, hiring, nonprofit, top company and free-text search, plus a city/location text filter.
• Founders, socials and jobs in one pass – turn on includeFounders, includeJobs or includeSocials and each company's public YC page is added to the item.
• Friendly batch input – W24, S25, F24, P25/X25, Winter 2025 or just 2024 all work.
• Monitoring mode – turn on onlyNewSinceLastRun, schedule the actor, and get only the companies you have not seen yet (for example each new batch as it is announced).
• You only pay for results – only valid companies (with name, slug and YC URL) are saved and charged.

Use cases

• Sales and lead generation – build lists of funded startups by batch, industry and size, with founders' LinkedIn profiles and company socials.
• Investors and analysts – track batches, statuses (Active, Acquired, Public, Inactive), industries and team growth over time.
• Recruiters and job seekers – find YC startups that are hiring and see their open roles with salary and equity ranges.
• Market research – map which problems YC funds (tags, industries, regions) and how that changes batch to batch.
• Enrichment pipelines – feed websites and LinkedIn URLs into LinkedIn, email or CRM enrichment tools.

Input

Field	Type	Description	Default
searchQuery	string	Free-text search, like the search box on the YC site	–
batches	array	W24, S25, F24, P25, Winter 2025, 2024 …	–
industries	array	YC industries or sub-industries, e.g. B2B, Fintech, Healthcare, Security	–
regions	array	YC regions, e.g. United States of America, Europe, India, Remote	–
locations	array	Text match on the location, e.g. San Francisco, London	–
tags	array	YC tags, e.g. Developer Tools, Generative AI, Open Source	–
status	array	Active, Acquired, Public, Inactive	–
teamSizeMin / teamSizeMax	integer	Team size range	–
isHiring	boolean	Only companies hiring on Work at a Startup	false
nonprofit	boolean	Only nonprofits	false
topCompany	boolean	Only YC Top Companies	false
sortBy	string	relevance or launchDate (newest first)	relevance
includeFounders	boolean	Add founders from the company page	false
includeJobs	boolean	Add open jobs from the company page	false
includeSocials	boolean	Add social links, year founded, city, country and YC partner	false
maxResults	integer	Stop after this many companies	–
onlyNewSinceLastRun	boolean	Return only companies not returned by earlier runs with the same search	false
compactOutput	boolean	Slim items for AI agents	false
proxyConfiguration	object	Optional; not needed	none

Unknown filter values are reported in the log with close matches, and the run stops with a clear message if none of the values for a filter exist.

Example input

{
    "batches": ["W25", "S25"],
    "industries": ["B2B"],
    "isHiring": true,
    "teamSizeMax": 50,
    "includeFounders": true,
    "includeJobs": true,
    "maxResults": 200
}

Output

{
    "ycId": 29517,
    "name": "RetailReady",
    "slug": "retailready",
    "ycUrl": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/retailready",
    "website": "https://www.retailreadyai.com/",
    "oneLiner": "An AI-powered supply chain compliance engine",
    "longDescription": "Every time workers in a warehouse box an order, they reference a 100 page manual...",
    "batch": "Winter 2024",
    "batchShort": "W24",
    "status": "Active",
    "stage": "Early",
    "industry": "B2B",
    "industries": ["B2B", "Supply Chain and Logistics"],
    "subindustry": "B2B -> Supply Chain and Logistics",
    "tags": ["B2B", "Compliance", "Logistics", "Supply Chain", "AI"],
    "regions": ["United States of America", "America / Canada"],
    "location": "San Francisco, CA, USA",
    "city": "San Francisco",
    "country": "US",
    "teamSize": 12,
    "launchedAt": "2024-01-16T16:52:04.000Z",
    "yearFounded": 2024,
    "isHiring": true,
    "topCompany": false,
    "nonprofit": false,
    "formerNames": [],
    "logoUrl": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/199d48c929434ddb64281cd83b9621eb37c3ed62.png",
    "primaryPartner": "Jared Friedman",
    "socials": {
        "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/retailreadyai/",
        "twitter": null,
        "facebook": null,
        "crunchbase": null,
        "github": null
    },
    "founders": [
        {
            "name": "Elle Smyth",
            "title": "Founder",
            "bio": "Elle is the Co-Founder of RetailReady, which she started with Sarah Hamer...",
            "linkedin": "https://linkedin.com/in/ellesmyth",
            "twitter": null,
            "isActive": true
        }
    ],
    "jobs": [
        {
            "id": 77573,
            "title": "Full Stack Software Engineer",
            "location": "San Francisco, CA, US",
            "type": "Full-time",
            "role": "Engineering",
            "roleSpecificType": "Full stack",
            "salary": "$110K - $170K",
            "equity": "0.01% - 0.30%",
            "minExperience": "Any (new grads ok)",
            "visa": "US citizen/visa only",
            "skills": ["Flask", "React", "React Native", "TypeScript", "Next.js"],
            "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/retailready/jobs/wEGXWv4-full-stack-software-engineer"
        }
    ],
    "jobCount": 3,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-09-23T10:13:19.982Z"
}

socials, city, country, yearFounded and primaryPartner are filled when any company-page option is on; founders needs includeFounders, jobs and jobCount need includeJobs. Otherwise they are null.

The key-value store also contains:

• SUMMARY – directory match count, companies saved, company pages fetched, filters applied (as resolved to YC's exact values), warnings and limits reached.
• FAILED_DETAILS – companies whose YC page could not be loaded. These companies are still saved with the directory data.

Pricing

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing: a tiny fee per run plus a fee per company saved to the dataset. Founders, socials and jobs are included at no extra charge. Set a maximum cost per run in Apify Console and the actor stops cleanly when it is reached. See the Pricing tab for current prices.

FAQ

How many companies are there? About 6,200 public companies across every batch since Summer 2005. The actor logs how many match your filters before it starts; this is the same number the YC website shows.

How do I get each new batch automatically? Set batches to the upcoming batch (or leave it empty), turn on onlyNewSinceLastRun and create an Apify Schedule. Each run returns only companies added since the last run. Changing the search or filters starts a fresh history.

Where do founders and jobs come from? From each company's public page on ycombinator.com (for example ycombinator.com/companies/airbnb). Jobs are the public listings shown there; the actor does not log in to Work at a Startup and does not collect founder emails.

Why is the order different with very large searches? The YC search returns at most 1,000 results per query. Larger result sets are fetched batch by batch (newest batch first), so every company is included but the order is grouped by batch.

Do I need a proxy? No. The directory and company pages are public and load quickly without one.

Is this legal? The actor reads public information that Y Combinator publishes for every visitor, using the same public search the website uses. It does not log in or bypass any protection. You are responsible for using the data in line with applicable laws, including data protection rules for personal data such as founder profiles.

Support

Missing a field or filter? Open an issue on the actor's Issues tab – we usually respond within a day.

Related actors

• LinkedIn Company Scraper: enrich YC companies with LinkedIn size, industry, headquarters and more.
• LinkedIn Company Employees Scraper: find the people working at a YC startup beyond the founders.
• Career Site Jobs Scraper: all open jobs from a startup's own Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby or Workday career site.