Y Combinator Founders Scraper

Scrape the entire Y Combinator founders directory — all ~13,400 YC founders — into clean, structured JSON, CSV, or Excel. This Y Combinator founders scraper pulls data straight from the Algolia search API that powers the YC website, so it is fast, reliable, needs no browser, no proxies, and no API key. Run it on the Apify platform for API access, scheduling, monitoring, integrations (Zapier, Make, Slack), and one-click exports.

What is the Y Combinator Founders Scraper?

The Y Combinator Founders Scraper is a tool that extracts every public founder listed on ycombinator.com/founders, including name, current title, current company, batch(es), industry, region, top-company flag, avatar, and the company profile URL. You can scrape the full founders directory, a specific set of batches (e.g. S21), filter by role (e.g. CEO, CTO), or run a search query (e.g. Brian Chesky) that mirrors the website's own search box.

Because the YC founders directory is served by Algolia, this scraper talks to that API directly instead of rendering paginated, JavaScript-heavy 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.

Looking for company-level data instead? See the companion Y Combinator Companies Scraper.

What can the YC Founders Scraper do?

• 📦 Scrape the full Y Combinator founder list — all ~13,400 founders (W05 to the latest batch) in a single run.
• 🔍 Search by keyword — mirror the YC search box with a query like Brian Chesky or DoorDash.
• 🏷️ Filter like the YC sidebar — by Top Company Founder, batch, company industry / subindustry, and company role / title, plus an extra region filter exposed by the backend.
• 🤖 No browser, no proxies, no auth — 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 snapshots, monitor new batches, and connect to Zapier, Make, Slack, Airbyte, Google Sheets, and more.

What data can you extract from Y Combinator founders?

Each founder becomes one structured dataset record. Representative fields:

Field	Description
full_name, first_name, last_name	Founder name
current_title	Title at their current company (e.g. CEO, CTO)
current_company, company_slug	Current company and its YC slug
all_companies_text	All companies associated with the founder
batches	YC batch code(s), e.g. ["S13"]
yc_parent_industries	Top-level industry of the company
yc_industries, yc_subindustries	Fine-grained industry classification
current_region	Founder's current country/region
yc_titles	All titles recorded for the founder
top_company	Whether they founded a YC "top company"
avatar_thumb	Profile photo URL
hnid, url_slug	Founder handle / slug
yc_company_url	Link to their company's YC profile
objectID, id	Unique identifiers

How do I scrape the Y Combinator founders directory?

1. Click Try for free / Start.
2. Leave the input empty to scrape every founder, or set a search query and/or any combination of filters (batch, industry, role, 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 founders 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 founders page. Filters of the same type are combined with OR; different filter types are combined with AND (e.g. industries: ["Fintech"] + roles: ["CEO"] returns CEOs of Fintech companies).

Field	Type	Description
query	string	Full-text search term (founder name, company, etc.), like the YC search box.
topCompanyFoundersOnly	boolean	Only founders of YC "top companies" (the Top Company Founder toggle).
batches	array (enum)	YC batches as short codes, e.g. ["S21", "W22"].
industries	array (enum)	Top-level company industry (9 broad sectors).
subindustries	array (enum)	Fine-grained company subcategories (e.g. Payments, Security).
roles	array (enum)	Company role / title (e.g. Founder, CEO, CTO, Co-Founder).
regions	array (enum)	Founder's current country/region (extra filter, not in the site sidebar).
maxItems	integer	Maximum number of founders to store (0 = no limit). On the free plan this is capped at 10 founders — 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 — every founder:

{}

Example input — CEOs of Fintech companies from the W22 and S21 batches:

{
  "industries": ["Fintech"],
  "roles": ["CEO"],
  "batches": ["W22", "S21"]
}

Filter values

• Top Company Founder: boolean toggle for founders of companies YC flags as a "top company".
• Industries (9): B2B, Consumer, Education, Fintech, Government, Healthcare, Industrials, Real Estate and Construction, Unspecified.
• Batches (49): short codes W27, F26, S26, P26, W26, F25, S25 … S05 — W=Winter, P=Spring, S=Summer, F=Fall, two-digit year. Listed newest first, with readable labels (e.g. Summer 2021 (S21)) in the Input tab.
• Subindustries (59): Agriculture, Analytics, Asset Management, Banking and Exchange, Climate, Consumer Finance, Healthcare IT, Payments, Security, Supply Chain and Logistics, … — all 59 selectable from the dropdown in the Input tab.
• Roles / titles: the full taxonomy of company titles, ordered by frequency (Founder, CEO, CTO, Co-Founder, COO, …) — all selectable from the dropdown in the Input tab. These are raw, free-text titles from founder profiles, so the list includes many unusual variants.
• Regions (105): every country (United States of America, India, United Kingdom, France, …) plus Unspecified. Full enum in the Input tab.

Output example

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

{
  "id": 43161,
  "first_name": "Martin",
  "last_name": "Daniel",
  "hnid": "martindaniel4",
  "avatar_thumb": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/avatars/b8c0cc5c094d3ffb54643db907288af0e078be13.jpg",
  "current_company": "Carbonfact",
  "current_title": null,
  "company_slug": "carbonfact",
  "top_company": false,
  "url_slug": "martin-daniel",
  "all_companies_text": "Carbonfact",
  "yc_industries": [["Industrials", "Climate"]],
  "yc_parent_industries": ["Industrials"],
  "yc_subindustries": ["Industrials -> Climate"],
  "current_region": "France",
  "yc_titles": ["Founder"],
  "batches": ["S21"],
  "_tags": ["ycdc_public"],
  "objectID": "43161",
  "full_name": "Martin Daniel",
  "yc_company_url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/carbonfact"
}

Note on founder profile links: Y Combinator does not publish a standalone public page per founder — founders are shown on their company's profile. The yc_company_url field therefore links to the founder's current company on the YC directory.

Free plan vs. paid plan

	Free plan	Paid plan
Founders per run	Up to 10 founders	Unlimited — the full ~13,400-founder 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 founders, 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 founders directory in a single run.

Why choose this Y Combinator founders scraper?

	This Actor	Browser-based YC scrapers
⚡ Speed	Whole directory in under a minute via the Algolia API	Minutes — fetches each page one by one
🤖 Infrastructure	No browser, no proxies, no API key	Headless browser + proxy rotation
🎛️ Filtering depth	Top-company, batch, industry, subindustry, role/title, region	Usually batch / industry only
🔁 Freshness	Live — reads the YC search index on every run	Live, but slower
🛡️ Resilience	Re-extracts Algolia credentials from the live page each run	Breaks when page markup changes
🧹 Output	Clean, deduplicated structured records	Varies

Use cases

• 🎯 Lead generation — build targeted lists of YC founders filtered by batch, industry, role, or region.
• 💰 VC & investor research — track founders behind each new YC batch the moment it lands.
• 🧑‍💼 Recruiting & talent sourcing — find technical or executive founders (e.g. CTO, CEO) in a given sector.
• 🤝 Sales & BD — power CRM enrichment with founder names, titles, and companies.
• 📊 Market & network research — map the people behind the YC portfolio across cohorts and regions.
• 🧠 Datasets for analysis & AI — get a clean, deduplicated snapshot of YC founders for dashboards or notebooks.

Automate and integrate the YC founders scraper

Run the Actor on a schedule (hourly, daily, weekly) to capture every new batch of founders automatically, and connect the results to your stack through Apify integrations:

• 🔧 Make & Zapier — wire YC founder data into 5,000+ apps and multi-step automations.
• 💬 Slack — get run notifications and fresh-founder alerts in your channels.
• 🏬 Airbyte / Google Sheets / Google Drive — pipe datasets into your warehouse or spreadsheets.
• 🔗 Webhooks & REST API — call the Actor from Python, Node.js, or any language via the Apify API.

FAQ

Is it legal to scrape Y Combinator founders?

This Actor collects only publicly available 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. This tool is independent and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Y Combinator.

How many founders are in the Y Combinator directory?

The directory contains roughly 13,400 founders, from the very first batch (Summer 2005) to the latest cohort. On a paid plan this Actor can return all of them in one run; the free plan is capped at 10 founders — see Free plan vs. paid plan.

Does this scraper include emails or phone numbers?

No. It returns only the public profile data YC exposes through its founders search index — name, title, company, batch, industry, region, avatar, and links — not private contact details such as emails or phone numbers.

How do I scrape only one YC batch of founders?

Set the batches field to the batch code you want, e.g. ["W24"]. You can select multiple batches and combine them with industry, role, or region filters.

Can I export Y Combinator founder 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.

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.