Y Combinator Startups Scraper

What does Y Combinator Startups Scraper do?

Y Combinator Startups Scraper extracts structured data from the Y Combinator startup directory. It uses the official YC API to collect company profiles including names, websites, descriptions, team sizes, batch info, industries, funding status, and hiring data.

The scraper covers 5,800+ YC-backed startups from all batches (2005-present). Filter by batch (W24, S23), status (Active, Acquired, Public), industry, region, tags, or hiring status. No browser, no proxy, no login needed — pure HTTP API access.

Try it now on Apify with the "Start" button — the prefilled input scrapes 25 AI startups in seconds.

Who is Y Combinator Startups Scraper for?

Venture Capital & Angel Investors

• Track new YC batches as they launch to discover investment opportunities early
• Filter by industry + status to find active startups in your investment thesis
• Monitor acquired/public companies for exit pattern analysis

Sales & Business Development Teams

• Build targeted lead lists of YC-backed companies by industry and team size
• Identify companies currently hiring (growing = budget for new tools)
• Enrich with website URLs for outbound prospecting campaigns

Market Researchers & Analysts

• Analyze YC batch composition trends across industries and regions
• Track startup survival rates by batch vintage
• Study which industries YC is betting on each season

Recruiters & Talent Teams

• Find YC startups that are actively hiring
• Target companies by team size (early-stage vs growth-stage)
• Build lists of potential employer partners by industry

Why use Y Combinator Startups Scraper?

• Reliable data source — uses the official YC API, not fragile HTML scraping. No breakage when YC redesigns their website
• Complete coverage — access all 5,800+ companies in the YC directory, including historical batches back to 2005
• Rich filtering — search by keyword, batch, status, industry, region, tags, hiring status, and top company designation
• No proxy or login needed — the YC API is public and free. Zero anti-bot measures
• Pay only for what you scrape — PPE pricing means you pay per company extracted, not per run
• API-first — integrate with any workflow via the Apify API. Schedule runs, export to Google Sheets, trigger webhooks
• Fast — HTTP-only actor runs at 256 MB. Scrapes hundreds of companies in seconds

What data can you extract?

Each Y Combinator company profile includes:

Field	Description
name	Company name
slug	URL slug on YC
website	Company website URL
oneLiner	Short company description
longDescription	Full company description
teamSize	Number of employees
batch	YC batch (e.g., W24, S23, F25)
status	Active, Acquired, Inactive, or Public
industries	Array of industries (e.g., B2B, Healthcare, Fintech)
regions	Geographic regions
locations	Specific city/state/country
tags	Tags (e.g., Artificial Intelligence, SaaS)
isHiring	Whether the company is currently hiring
isTopCompany	YC top company designation
smallLogoUrl	Company logo URL
ycUrl	Full YC profile URL
scrapedAt	Timestamp of data extraction

How much does it cost to scrape Y Combinator startups?

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing — you pay only for what you scrape. No monthly subscription. All platform costs are included.

	Free	Starter ($29/mo)	Scale ($199/mo)	Business ($999/mo)
Per company	$0.0023	$0.002	$0.00156	$0.0012
100 companies	$0.23	$0.20	$0.156	$0.12
1,000 companies	$2.30	$2.00	$1.56	$1.20
All 5,800 companies	$13.34	$11.60	$9.05	$6.96

Higher-tier plans get additional volume discounts.

Real-world cost examples:

Query	Results	Duration	Cost (Free tier)
"AI" startups, 25 companies	25	~3s	~$0.06
W24 batch, all companies	~50	~5s	~$0.12
All active startups currently hiring	~300	~15s	~$0.70

With the free $5 Apify credit, you can scrape ~2,100 companies at no cost.

How to scrape Y Combinator startups

1. Go to the Y Combinator Startups Scraper page on Apify Store
2. Click "Start" to open the actor in Apify Console
3. Configure your search filters:
   • Enter a search query (e.g., "AI", "fintech") or leave empty for all companies
   • Select a YC batch (e.g., "W24") to focus on a specific cohort
   • Choose a status filter (Active, Acquired, Inactive, Public)
   • Toggle Currently hiring only to find growing companies
4. Set the Max companies limit (start small with 25 to preview results)
5. Click "Start" to run the scraper
6. Download results in JSON, CSV, Excel, or connect via API

Example input — scrape all W24 AI startups:

{
    "searchQuery": "AI",
    "batch": "W24",
    "maxCompanies": 100
}

Example input — find hiring startups in healthcare:

{
    "industry": "Healthcare",
    "isHiring": true,
    "maxCompanies": 200
}

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
searchQuery	string	""	Search by company name or description
batch	string	""	YC batch filter (e.g., W24, S23, F25)
status	string	""	Company status: Active, Acquired, Inactive, Public
industry	string	""	Industry filter (e.g., Healthcare, Fintech, B2B)
region	string	""	Region filter (e.g., United States, Europe)
isHiring	boolean	false	Only companies currently hiring
tags	string	""	Tag filter (e.g., Artificial Intelligence, SaaS)
isTopCompany	boolean	false	Only YC top companies
maxCompanies	integer	100	Max companies to scrape (0 = unlimited)

Output example

{
    "id": 30837,
    "name": "AirCaps",
    "slug": "aircaps",
    "website": "https://aircaps.com",
    "smallLogoUrl": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/839111803eb4ccce6e6e411847617a96d8d7d880.png",
    "oneLiner": "The AI copilot for in-person conversations.",
    "longDescription": "AirCaps is bringing AI assistance to in-person conversations...",
    "teamSize": 2,
    "ycUrl": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/aircaps",
    "batch": "F25",
    "status": "Active",
    "industries": ["Consumer"],
    "regions": ["United States of America", "America / Canada"],
    "locations": ["San Francisco, CA, USA"],
    "tags": ["Artificial Intelligence", "Productivity", "AI", "Conversational AI"],
    "badges": [],
    "isHiring": false,
    "isTopCompany": false,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-03-30T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Tips for best results

• Start small — use maxCompanies: 25 for your first run to preview the data and estimate costs
• Use server-side filters first — searchQuery, batch, status, tags, and isHiring are filtered server-side and run faster than industry or region (which require scanning all pages)
• Combine filters — narrow down results by combining batch + status + tags for precise targeting
• Schedule weekly runs — set up a scheduled run to track new YC companies as batches launch
• Export to Google Sheets — use the Apify Google Sheets integration for automatic updates to your CRM or deal flow tracker
• All 5,800+ companies — set maxCompanies: 0 to scrape the entire YC directory (takes ~2 minutes)

Integrations

• Y Combinator Scraper → Google Sheets — automatically update your deal flow spreadsheet with new YC startups each week
• Y Combinator Scraper → Slack — get notified when new companies match your investment criteria (e.g., Healthcare + hiring)
• Y Combinator Scraper → Zapier/Make — trigger outbound email sequences when new startups appear in your target industry
• Y Combinator Scraper → CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce) — enrich your pipeline with YC company data including website, team size, and description
• Scheduled runs — run weekly to catch new batch announcements and company status changes
• Webhooks — trigger downstream processing as soon as a scrape completes

Using the Apify API

You can access Y Combinator Startups Scraper programmatically using the Apify API.

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/ycombinator-scraper').call({
    searchQuery: 'AI',
    batch: 'W24',
    maxCompanies: 50,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')

run = client.actor('automation-lab/ycombinator-scraper').call(run_input={
    'searchQuery': 'AI',
    'batch': 'W24',
    'maxCompanies': 50,
})

items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~ycombinator-scraper/runs?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"searchQuery": "AI", "batch": "W24", "maxCompanies": 50}'

Use with AI agents via MCP

Y Combinator Startups Scraper is available as a tool for AI assistants that support the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Add the Apify MCP server to your AI client — this gives you access to all Apify actors, including this one:

Setup for Claude Code

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/ycombinator-scraper"

Setup for Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code

Add this to your MCP config file:

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

Your AI assistant will use OAuth to authenticate with your Apify account on first use.

Example prompts

Once connected, try asking your AI assistant:

• "Use automation-lab/ycombinator-scraper to find all AI startups from the W24 YC batch"
• "Scrape Y Combinator companies that are currently hiring in healthcare"
• "Get the full list of YC top companies with their websites and team sizes"

Learn more in the Apify MCP documentation.

Is it legal to scrape Y Combinator data?

This actor accesses publicly available data from the Y Combinator company directory through their public API. The data is freely accessible without authentication.

We follow ethical scraping practices:

• Only access publicly available information
• Use the official public API (no bypassing access controls)
• Respect rate limits and server resources
• Do not collect personal data beyond what companies voluntarily publish

For more information, see the Apify ethical web scraping guide.

FAQ

How fast is the scraper? Very fast — since it uses a direct API, there's no browser rendering or HTML parsing. It can scrape 100 companies in about 5 seconds and the entire 5,800+ company database in under 2 minutes.

How much does it cost to scrape all YC companies? On the free tier, scraping all 5,800+ companies costs approximately $13.34. With the free $5 Apify credit, you can scrape about 2,100 companies at no cost.

Is this better than scraping the YC website directly? Yes — this actor uses the official YC API, which is faster, more reliable, and less likely to break than HTML scraping. You get structured JSON data directly without any parsing.

Why do some companies have empty descriptions? Some YC companies don't fill in their longDescription on the YC directory. The oneLiner field is almost always populated, but longDescription may be empty for newer or less active companies.

Why does the industry filter take longer? The YC API doesn't support industry filtering server-side, so the scraper must scan all pages and filter locally. Use searchQuery, batch, status, or tags filters for faster results — those are processed server-side.

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