Y Combinator Company Detail Scraper

Extract full Y Combinator company profiles — founders, jobs, news, and metrics — from any YC company URL or slug, and export them to JSON, CSV, or Excel.

What is the Y Combinator Company Detail Scraper?

The Y Combinator Company Detail Scraper turns any Y Combinator company page into structured data. Give it one or more company URLs or slugs (for example https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/doordash or just doordash) and it returns a complete JSON record per company: batch, founding year, team size, one-liner, long description, founders with bios and social links, open job postings, recent news items, launches, and every social/Crunchbase link YC publishes.

It reads data straight from the page's embedded JSON — no headless browser — so runs are fast, lightweight, and reliable. Run it on the Apify platform to schedule scrapes, call it via API, and export results in one click.

What can this Y Combinator scraper do?

• 🏢 Scrape full company details for any YC-backed startup by URL or slug
• 👥 Extract founder profiles — names, titles, bios, LinkedIn and Twitter/X links
• 💼 Pull open job postings — role, type, location, salary/equity range, experience
• 📰 Collect recent news items and Launch YC posts for each company
• 🔗 Capture website, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Facebook, Crunchbase, and GitHub links
• 📦 Bulk process hundreds of companies in one run, with adjustable concurrency
• 📤 Export to JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML, or fetch results through the Apify API
• ⏰ Schedule recurring runs, monitor them, and connect to Zapier, Make, and webhooks
• 🌐 Optional Apify Proxy rotation for very large runs

What data does the Y Combinator Company Detail Scraper extract?

Field	Description
name	Company name
slug	YC directory slug (last part of the profile URL)
batch / batch_name	YC batch code and full name (e.g. S13 / Summer 2013)
one_liner	Short tagline
long_description	Full company description
website	Company website
ycdc_status	Status (e.g. Active, Public, Acquired)
year_founded	Founding year
team_size	Number of employees
location / city / country	Headquarters location
tags	Industry/category tags
founders	Array of founders (name, title, bio, avatar, LinkedIn, Twitter/X)
jobPostings	Array of open roles (title, type, location, salary, equity, experience)
newsItems	Array of recent news (title, URL, date)
launches	Array of Launch YC posts
logo_url / small_logo_url	Company logo image URLs
linkedin_url / twitter_url / fb_url / cb_url / github_url	Social & Crunchbase links
yc_url	Canonical YC company page URL
input_url	The exact URL or slug you supplied

The table is representative — each record contains additional YC fields such as city_tag, company_photos, and primary_group_partner.

How do I use this scraper to extract Y Combinator company data?

1. Open the Actor and go to the Input tab.
2. Add one or more companies to Company URLs or slugs — paste full profile URLs (https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/stripe) or bare slugs (stripe).
3. (Optional) Adjust Max concurrency for faster or gentler runs.
4. Click Start.
5. When the run finishes, open the Output/Storage tab and download your data as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML — or pull it via the Apify API.

Need the full YC directory first? Pair this Actor with a directory scraper to get every company URL, then feed those URLs here for the detailed data.

Input

The Actor takes a simple, plain-language input:

• Company URLs or slugs (required) — a list of YC company profile URLs or slugs, one company per entry. Both https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/doordash and doordash work.
• Max concurrency (optional) — how many companies to fetch in parallel (1–50, default 10). Higher is faster; lower is gentler on the target site.
• Proxy configuration (optional) — YC serves data fine over direct requests, so a proxy is usually unnecessary; enable it only for very large runs.

Example input:

{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/doordash",
    "airbnb"
  ],
  "maxConcurrency": 10
}

Output example

Every company becomes one dataset record. You can download the dataset in JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML, or fetch it through the Apify API. A trimmed example (real fields):

Below is a complete record with every field the Actor returns. Long values (presigned image URLs, descriptions, bios) are shortened and arrays are trimmed to their first item with a "..." marker — real runs contain the full data.

{
  "id": 271,
  "slug": "airbnb",
  "name": "Airbnb",
  "batch": "W09",
  "batch_name": "Winter 2009",
  "small_logo_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/small_logos/3e9a0092...png",
  "one_liner": "Book accommodations around the world.",
  "website": "http://airbnb.com",
  "long_description": "Founded in August of 2008 and based in San Francisco, California, Airbnb is a trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around the world...",
  "tags": ["Marketplace", "Travel"],
  "ycdc_status": "Public",
  "logo_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/logos/0d179a13...png?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&...&X-Amz-Signature=...  (presigned, expires ~1h)",
  "year_founded": 2008,
  "team_size": 6132,
  "location": "San Francisco",
  "city": "San Francisco",
  "city_tag": "san-francisco-bay-area",
  "country": "US",
  "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/airbnb/",
  "twitter_url": "https://twitter.com/Airbnb",
  "fb_url": "https://www.facebook.com/airbnb/",
  "cb_url": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb",
  "github_url": null,
  "free_response_question_answers": [],
  "dday_video_url": null,
  "app_video_url": null,
  "app_answers": [],
  "ycdc_url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/airbnb",
  "company_photos": [
    {
      "id": 164,
      "url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/attachments/8a7236c9...png?X-Amz-...  (presigned)",
      "photo_type": "sign"
    }
  ],
  "primary_group_partner": {
    "id": 678,
    "full_name": "Garry Tan",
    "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/3e671fcf...jpg?X-Amz-...  (presigned)",
    "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/people/garry-tan"
  },
  "founders": [
    {
      "user_id": 21981,
      "is_active": true,
      "founder_bio": "Brian Chesky is the co-founder, Head of Community, and CEO of Airbnb, which he started with Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk in 2008...",
      "full_name": "Brian Chesky",
      "title": "Founder/CEO",
      "avatar_thumb_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/avatars/7415ee0d...jpg?X-Amz-...  (presigned)",
      "twitter_url": "https://twitter.com/bchesky",
      "linkedin_url": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianchesky/",
      "has_email": true,
      "latest_yc_company": { "name": "Airbnb", "href": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/airbnb" }
    },
    "... 2 more founders"
  ],
  "jobPostings": [],
  "newsItems": [
    {
      "title": "Airbnb launches Airbnb Rooms listing category for budget travel",
      "url": "https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2023/05/03/airbnb-rooms-listing-category-budget-travel/70178696007/",
      "date": "May 03, 2023"
    },
    "... 4 more news items"
  ],
  "launches": [],
  "yc_url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/airbnb",
  "input_url": "airbnb"
}

jobPostings is empty here because Airbnb has no open YC-listed roles. For hiring companies it contains one object per role, with fields like title, type, prettyRole, location, salaryRange, equityRange, and minExperience (see the data table above).

Free vs. paid plans

The Actor works on any Apify account — the difference is how many companies one run returns:

Plan	Companies per run	Notes
🆓 Free	First 5 companies per run	Any extra URLs/slugs beyond 5 are skipped, and a warning is logged. Great for testing and small jobs.
⭐ Paid (premium)	Up to 1,000 companies per run	Process large batches in one run; use Max concurrency to speed them up.

When you submit more companies than your plan allows, the Actor scrapes the first N and logs a notice — nothing fails, you simply get a capped result set. Upgrade your Apify plan to raise the cap from 5 to 1,000. The paid cap is a deliberate safety ceiling (rather than "unlimited") to prevent an accidental runaway run; if you need more than 1,000 companies in a single run, split them across runs or reach out via the Issues tab.

Use cases

• 🔎 Startup & VC research — build datasets of YC companies by batch, industry, or stage.
• 📈 Market and competitor analysis — track team size, status, and descriptions over time.
• 🧑‍💼 Recruiting & talent sourcing — surface open roles and hiring companies across YC.
• 📇 Lead generation & sales prospecting — enrich company lists with founders and links.
• 📰 Media monitoring — follow news coverage and launches for a portfolio of startups.
• 🧠 Data enrichment — hydrate a list of YC slugs/URLs into full company profiles via the API.

Other Y Combinator Actors you might like

• Y Combinator Companies Scraper — export the entire YC directory (~6,000 companies) with filters for batch, industry, region, and status. Use it to collect the URLs you feed into this Actor.
• Y Combinator Founders Scraper — extract founder-level data across YC.

FAQ

Is it legal to scrape Y Combinator company data?

This Actor collects publicly available information from Y Combinator company pages. As with any scraping, you are responsible for how you use the data and for complying with Y Combinator's Terms of Service and applicable laws (including data-protection rules where relevant). Do not use scraped personal data in ways that violate privacy regulations. If in doubt, seek legal advice.

How do I get a list of Y Combinator company URLs?

Use a YC directory scraper (see Other Actors above) to export every company URL or slug, then pass those into this Actor's Company URLs or slugs input for the full detailed profiles.

Can I use this Y Combinator scraper via API?

Yes. Every Actor on Apify has a REST API. You can start runs, pass input, and fetch the resulting dataset programmatically, and integrate with Zapier, Make, and webhooks.

What export formats are supported?

Results can be downloaded as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML, or retrieved from the dataset via the API.

Why are some logo and founder avatar image links broken later?

logo_url, small_logo_url, and founder avatar_thumb_url are time-limited presigned Amazon S3 links that YC generates per request. They expire within hours of scraping, so download the images promptly if you need to keep them.

What's the difference between free and premium (paid) users?

On the free plan, each run returns the first 5 companies and skips any extra entries (with a logged warning) — ideal for testing. Premium (paid) users can scrape up to 1,000 companies per run. That paid ceiling is intentional (rather than "unlimited") to guard against an accidental runaway run. The Actor's features are otherwise identical on both plans.

Does the scraper handle companies that don't exist?

Yes. If a URL or slug doesn't match a YC company (HTTP 404), that entry is recorded with an error field and the run continues — one bad input never stops the rest.

Support

Found a bug or need an extra field? Please open a ticket on the Actor's Issues tab on its Apify Store page. For custom scraping or data-delivery needs, mention it there — custom solutions are available.