Y Combinator Companies Scraper

Scrape the entire Y Combinator companies directory — all ~6,000 startups — into clean, structured JSON, CSV, or Excel. This Y Combinator scraper pulls data straight from the Algolia search API that powers the YC website, so it is fast, reliable, and needs no browser. Run it on the Apify platform to get API access, scheduling, monitoring, integrations (Zapier, Make), and automatic exports.

What is the Y Combinator Companies Scraper?

The Y Combinator Companies Scraper is a tool that extracts every public company listed on ycombinator.com/companies, including name, one-liner, full description, batch, status, stage, team size, industry, location, website, tags, and the YC profile URL. You can scrape the full YC directory, a specific set of batches (e.g. Winter 2022), or run a search query (e.g. Ubereats) that mirrors the website's own search box.

Because the YC directory is served by Algolia, this scraper talks to that API directly instead of rendering pages in a headless browser. The result is a scrape that finishes the entire directory in well under a minute — far faster and lighter than a browser-based crawler.

What can the YC Companies Scraper do?

• 📦 Scrape the full Y Combinator portfolio — all ~6,000 companies in a single run.
• 🔍 Search by keyword — mirror the YC search box with a query like Ubereats or developer tools.
• 🏷️ Filter like the YC sidebar — by batch, industry, subindustry, tags, region, status, team size, hiring status, nonprofit, and "top company".
• 🤖 No browser, no proxies needed — talks to the Algolia backend over plain HTTP, so it's fast and resilient.
• 📤 Export anywhere — download as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML, or pull results via the Apify API.
• ⏱️ Automate it — schedule recurring runs, monitor results, and connect to Zapier, Make, Google Sheets, Slack, and more through Apify integrations.

What data can you extract from Y Combinator companies?

Each company becomes one structured dataset record. Representative fields:

Field	Description
name, former_names	Company name(s)
slug, yc_url	YC profile slug and full URL
website	Company website
one_liner, long_description	Short tagline and full company description
batch	YC batch (e.g. Winter 2015)
status	Active, Acquired, Public, or Inactive
stage	Company stage (Early, Growth, …)
team_size	Number of employees
industry, subindustry, industries, tags	Sector classification
all_locations, regions	Location data
isHiring, top_company, nonprofit	Boolean flags
small_logo_thumb_url	Company logo
launched_at	Launch timestamp (Unix)
app_video_public, demo_day_video_public	Whether the pitch / demo-day videos are public
app_answers, question_answers, tags_highlighted	Additional YC metadata
objectID, id	Unique identifiers

How do I scrape the Y Combinator companies directory?

1. Click Try for free / Start.
2. Leave the input empty to scrape the entire directory, or set a search query and/or any combination of filters (batch, industry, region, etc.) to narrow the results.
3. Click Save & Start.
4. When the run finishes, open the Output tab and download the data as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML — or pull it via the Apify API.

Input

Every field is optional. Leave everything empty to scrape the entire YC directory. Add a search term and/or any combination of filters to narrow the results — they map one-to-one to the filter sidebar on the YC website. Filters of the same type are combined with OR; different filter types are combined with AND (e.g. industries: ["Fintech"] + regions: ["India"] returns Fintech companies in India).

Field	Type	Description
query	string	Full-text search term (company name or keyword), like the YC search box.
batches	array (enum)	YC batches, e.g. ["Winter 2022", "Summer 2024"].
industries	array (enum)	Top-level industry categories.
subindustries	array	Fine-grained subcategories (e.g. Security, Payments, Healthcare IT).
tags	array	Company tags (e.g. Artificial Intelligence, SaaS, Developer Tools).
regions	array (enum)	Geographic regions / remote options.
statuses	array (enum)	Operating status: Active, Inactive, Acquired, Public.
minTeamSize / maxTeamSize	integer	Team-size range (the "Company size" filter).
isHiring	boolean	Only companies currently hiring.
nonprofitOnly	boolean	Only nonprofit companies.
topCompaniesOnly	boolean	Only companies flagged by YC as "top company".
maxItems	integer	Maximum number of companies to store (0 = no limit). On the free plan this is capped at 10 companies — see Free plan vs. paid plan.
maxConcurrency	integer	Number of parallel requests to the backend (default 10).
proxyConfiguration	object	Optional proxy settings. Not required — the backend has no anti-bot protection.

Example input — the whole directory:

{}

Example input — AI fintech startups in India that are hiring, teams up to 50:

{
  "industries": ["Fintech"],
  "tags": ["Artificial Intelligence"],
  "regions": ["India"],
  "isHiring": true,
  "maxTeamSize": 50
}

Filter values

• Industries (9): B2B, Consumer, Education, Fintech, Government, Healthcare, Industrials, Real Estate and Construction, Unspecified.
• Statuses (4): Active, Inactive, Acquired, Public.
• Batches (50): Winter 2027 … Summer 2005 (every Winter/Spring/Summer/Fall batch), plus Unspecified. Full enum in the Input tab.
• Regions (98): every country plus aggregates (America / Canada, Europe, Latin America, South Asia, …) and remote options (Remote, Partly Remote, Fully Remote). Full enum in the Input tab.
• Subindustries (59): Agriculture, Analytics, Asset Management, Banking and Exchange, Climate, Consumer Finance, Credit and Lending, Diagnostics, Drug Discovery and Delivery, Energy, Healthcare IT, Human Resources, Infrastructure, Insurance, Manufacturing and Robotics, Payments, Security, Supply Chain and Logistics, … (full list on the YC site).
• Tags (331): the full free-form tag taxonomy (e.g. Generative AI, Developer Tools, Climate, Robotics, Biotech, Payments, Cybersecurity, …). Any tag visible on the YC site works.

Output example

Each company becomes one dataset item. You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel. A complete example record:

{
  "id": 26331,
  "name": "BBy",
  "slug": "bby",
  "former_names": [
    "BBy, Inc"
  ],
  "small_logo_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/32ca3d94384fbaa3965d8340db4bd11c1c0bf860.png",
  "website": "http://www.bbymilk.com",
  "all_locations": "New York, NY, USA",
  "long_description": "BBy's condensing device turns milk into a fine powder that spares the biome leaving it biologically and immunologically active. This allows  hospitals to stop wasting precious nursing time defrosting milk for hours and milk wastage from discarding rules. Simply weigh the powder, add water, shake and serve. No more freezing, no more defrosting, only patient care. NICUs are time sensitive wards in the hospital, time is everything and yet nurses today continue to prepare frozen milk for infants in what's known as the milk shift. A shift where the nurse spends the day defrosting milk for the next shift of nurses. Our tech is now fully peer reviewed and published, yielding safe and reliable results in over 20 hospitals in the New York Tri-State. The company is headed by Vansh Langer MD, a physician (Windsor University, University of Chicago) and Blanca Aguilar Uscanga PhD, a Bioengineering/Food Science PhD (University of Guadalajara /Centro Universitario de Ciencias Exactas e Ingenierías (CUCEI)) team that has over 50 published works in the field between them and are experts in the science of infant nutrition. Vansh saw the immense need for a time critical solution in the NICU and helped solve the puzzle with Dra. Blanca and her team and decided to work together to: Nurture the Future.",
  "one_liner": "BBy powders breast milk that's immunologically active & lasts 6 months",
  "team_size": 70,
  "industry": "Healthcare",
  "subindustry": "Healthcare -> Medical Devices",
  "launched_at": 1643810815,
  "tags": [
    "Health Tech",
    "Medical Devices",
    "Healthcare"
  ],
  "tags_highlighted": [],
  "top_company": false,
  "isHiring": false,
  "nonprofit": false,
  "batch": "Winter 2022",
  "status": "Active",
  "industries": [
    "Healthcare",
    "Medical Devices"
  ],
  "regions": [
    "United States of America",
    "America / Canada",
    "Remote",
    "Partly Remote"
  ],
  "stage": "Growth",
  "app_video_public": true,
  "demo_day_video_public": true,
  "app_answers": null,
  "question_answers": false,
  "objectID": "26331",
  "yc_url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/bby"
}

Free plan vs. paid plan

	Free plan	Paid plan
Companies per run	Up to 10 companies	Unlimited — the full ~6,000-company directory
maxItems	Ignored above 10 (capped)	Honored fully (0 = no limit)
Search & all filters	✅ Available	✅ Available
All output fields	✅ Available	✅ Available
Exports (JSON, CSV, Excel, API)	✅ Available	✅ Available

On the free plan, every run returns at most 10 companies, regardless of the maxItems value or how broad your filters are. Search and all filters still work, so you can preview exactly the data you'd get — just limited to 10 results. Upgrade to a paid plan to remove the limit and scrape the entire Y Combinator directory in a single run.

Use cases

• 🎯 Lead generation — build targeted prospect lists of YC-backed startups filtered by batch, industry, region, or stage.
• 📊 Market & competitive research — track which companies YC funds, in which sectors, and how teams grow over time.
• 🧑‍💼 Recruiting & talent sourcing — find startups that are actively hiring with the isHiring filter.
• 💰 Investor & VC deal sourcing — monitor each new YC batch the moment it's added and surface emerging companies.
• 🧠 Datasets for analysis & AI — get a clean, deduplicated snapshot of the YC portfolio for dashboards, notebooks, or model training.
• 🤝 Sales prospecting — enrich your CRM with fresh YC company data via the Apify API and integrations.

FAQ

Is it legal to scrape Y Combinator?

This Actor collects only publicly available company information that Y Combinator itself exposes through its public website and search index. You are responsible for complying with Y Combinator's Terms of Service and applicable laws (including data-protection regulations such as GDPR) when using the data. Do not use the data for unlawful purposes.

Can I export Y Combinator data to CSV or Excel?

Yes. Every run produces a dataset you can download as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML, or retrieve programmatically through the Apify API and integrations like Google Sheets, Zapier, and Make.

Does this Y Combinator scraper use an API?

Yes — it reads the same Algolia search API that powers ycombinator.com/companies. It re-extracts the public Algolia credentials from the live page on every run, so a credential rotation won't break it. No headless browser is required.

How do I scrape only one YC batch?

Set the batches field to the batch you want, e.g. ["Winter 2024"]. You can select multiple batches, and combine them with industry, region, or tag filters.

How many companies can it return?

On a paid plan the Actor can return the entire directory (~6,000 companies). On the free plan each run is capped at 10 companies — see Free plan vs. paid plan. Note that any single search query returns at most its first 1,000 matches (an Algolia limit), which is never an issue for normal searches; broad selections are automatically split by batch to capture everything.

Will it break if YC changes its website?

The Actor reads the Algolia credentials live from the page on every run, so a credential rotation won't break it. If YC changes the underlying index structure, please report it via the Issues tab.

Support

Found a bug, or need a custom field or a tailored YC dataset? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab — feedback and feature requests are welcome, and custom solutions are available.