Y Combinator Companies Scraper

The YC company directory holds thousands of startups, but the site only lets you browse a page at a time and there's no export button. If you want a clean spreadsheet of companies by batch, industry, or region, you're stuck copying cells by hand. This scraper does that part for you. Give it a keyword or a few filters and it returns each company's name, batch, website, team size, hiring status, and more as structured rows you can drop straight into a sheet or database. It talks to the same public search API the YC site uses, so results come back quickly.

What you get

Each company comes back as one tidy row with the same shape every time, so your columns line up whether you load the data into a spreadsheet, a database, or a notebook. The fields fall into a few groups:

• Identity — companyName, companySlug, tagline, aboutText, logoUrl, websiteUrl, ycProfileUrl
• YC details — batchCode, operatingStatus, topRated, isNonprofit, hiringNow
• Classification — industryList, subindustryName, companyTags, regionList, officeLocations
• Company size — headcount
• Run metadata — matchedTerm, collectedAt

Quick start

1. Click Try for free to open the input form.
2. Type a keyword into Keyword, or add several in Keyword list to run them together.
3. Optionally narrow things down with Batch codes, Industry tags, Regions, or the hiring and top-company toggles.
4. Set a Results cap to control how many companies come back per keyword.
5. Press Start, then export the rows as JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML once the run finishes.

Use cases

• Investor sourcing — pull every company in a batch or industry to build a deal-flow list
• Sector mapping — group companies by subindustry or region to chart a vertical
• Recruiting and job hunting — filter for companies that are hiring right now
• Batch tracking — grab each new YC batch the moment it lands to keep your portfolio view current
• Competitive research — see who else YC backed in your space, with websites and one-liners ready to read
• Partnership outreach — screen nonprofits or top-company badge holders for grants or collaboration

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
searchTerm	string	No	A single keyword or phrase to search across the directory. Leave empty to match every company.
searchTerms	array of strings	No	Several keywords to run in one job; results are de-duplicated by company. Merges with searchTerm if both are set.
batchCodes	array of strings	No	Keep only the YC batches you list (for example S23, W22). Several batches use OR logic.
industryTags	array of strings	No	Keep only companies with the industry labels you choose. Several labels use OR logic.
regionFilter	array of strings	No	Keep only companies based in the regions you name. Several regions use OR logic.
hiringOnly	boolean	No	Return only companies with open roles. Default false.
topRatedOnly	boolean	No	Return only companies YC tags as top companies. Default false.
resultsLimit	integer	No	Most companies to return per keyword, up to 1000. Default 50.
timeoutSeconds	integer	No	Seconds to wait on each HTTP request before giving up. Default 45.
proxyConfiguration	object	No	Proxies for your requests. Defaults to Datacenter (Anywhere); switch to Residential if datacenter IPs get blocked.

Example input

{
    "searchTerms": ["climate", "robotics"],
    "batchCodes": ["S23", "W22"],
    "industryTags": ["Healthcare"],
    "regionFilter": ["Europe"],
    "hiringOnly": true,
    "resultsLimit": 50,
    "timeoutSeconds": 45,
    "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": true }
}

Output

Every company matched by your search becomes one row, and each row carries the same set of fields, so the dataset stays rectangular and easy to load anywhere.

Example output

{
    "companyName": "Stripe",
    "companySlug": "stripe",
    "websiteUrl": "https://stripe.com",
    "officeLocations": "San Francisco, CA, USA",
    "logoUrl": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/example.png",
    "tagline": "Economic infrastructure for the internet.",
    "aboutText": "Stripe builds economic infrastructure for the internet, helping businesses accept payments and manage their finances online.",
    "batchCode": "S09",
    "companyTags": ["fintech", "payments"],
    "operatingStatus": "Active",
    "headcount": 8000,
    "industryList": ["Fintech", "B2B"],
    "subindustryName": "Financial Services",
    "regionList": ["America / USA"],
    "hiringNow": false,
    "isNonprofit": false,
    "topRated": true,
    "ycProfileUrl": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/stripe",
    "matchedTerm": "fintech",
    "collectedAt": "2026-06-29T12:00:00.000000+00:00"
}

Output fields

Field	Type	Description
companyName	string	Name of the company
companySlug	string	Directory slug that identifies the company in YC URLs
websiteUrl	string	Link to the company's own website
officeLocations	string	Every office location listed for the company
logoUrl	string	Link to the company's small logo image
tagline	string	One-line summary of what the company does
aboutText	string	Long-form description of the company
batchCode	string	Code of the YC batch the company joined (for example W21, S24)
companyTags	array	Labels attached to the company
operatingStatus	string	Current state of the business (for example Active, Acquired)
headcount	integer	Reported number of staff
industryList	array	Industry labels the company falls under
subindustryName	string	Main subindustry the company belongs to
regionList	array	Regions the company operates from
hiringNow	boolean	Whether the company currently has open roles
isNonprofit	boolean	Whether the company runs as a nonprofit
topRated	boolean	Whether YC has flagged this as a top company
ycProfileUrl	string	Full link to the company's YC profile page
matchedTerm	string	The keyword that surfaced this company
collectedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp marking when the row was captured

Tips for best results

• Try a small run first. Set resultsLimit to 25 or so, confirm the columns match your pipeline, then raise it for the full pull.
• Leave the keyword empty to grab everything. With no searchTerm or searchTerms, the actor returns all companies up to your cap, which is handy paired with batch or industry filters.
• Combine filters to zero in. Filters across different facets use AND logic, so batch W24 plus industry Fintech returns only W24 fintech companies. Several values inside one facet use OR logic.
• The cap is per keyword. When you pass a searchTerms list, each term collects up to resultsLimit on its own, so a list of five with a cap of 50 can return up to 250 rows before de-duplication.
• Proxies are optional. The YC search API is public and rarely throttles, so the default works for most runs. Switch to Residential only if you start seeing blocks.

How can I use Y Combinator company data?

How can I use the Y Combinator Companies Scraper to build a startup list for investor research? Pick a batch, industry, or region in the filters and run it. Each company comes back with its name, website, one-liner, team size, and YC profile link, so you can sort and rank deal flow in a spreadsheet without copying anything by hand from the directory.

How can I find Y Combinator startups that are hiring right now? Turn on the Hiring companies only toggle and add any keyword or industry tag you care about. The scraper returns just the companies with open roles, along with their websites and profile pages, which makes it a quick way to build a target list for a job search or recruiting outreach.

How can I export YC companies by batch to a spreadsheet? Enter one or more codes in Batch codes (such as S23 or W22), leave the keyword blank to capture the whole batch, then run it and download the dataset as CSV or Excel. You get one row per company with batch, status, headcount, and tags already split into columns.

How can I track new Y Combinator companies over time? Run the scraper against each fresh batch code as it is announced and append the output to your existing dataset. Because every row carries a collectedAt timestamp and a stable companySlug, you can spot newly added companies and watch how details like hiring status change between runs.

Is it legal to scrape data?

Our actors are ethical and do not extract any private user data, such as email addresses or private contact information. They only extract what the user has chosen to share publicly. We therefore believe that our actors, when used for ethical purposes by Apify users, are safe.

However, you should be aware that your results could contain personal data. Personal data is protected by the GDPR in the European Union and by other regulations around the world. You should not scrape personal data unless you have a legitimate reason to do so. If you're unsure whether your reason is legitimate, consult your lawyers.

You can also read Apify's blog post on the legality of web scraping.

Support

Questions, feature requests, or a field you'd like added? Reach out at data.apify@proton.me and we'll get back to you.