Y Combinator Companies Scraper

Extract structured company data from the public Y Combinator company directory. Search by keyword, filter by YC batch, industry, tag, region, hiring status, or company status, and export clean records for sales, recruiting, investment research, market mapping, and startup monitoring.

What does Y Combinator Companies Scraper do?

Y Combinator Companies Scraper turns YC's public company directory into a structured dataset. Give it a keyword such as ai, a batch such as Summer 2024, or filters such as B2B, Europe, and isHiring, and the actor returns matching YC-backed companies.

The dataset includes company names, websites, descriptions, batches, industries, regions, tags, team sizes, hiring flags, launch status, YC profile URLs, logos, and timestamps. You can also enable profile details to include public founder names and social links when they are visible on YC profile pages.

Who is it for?

• 🚀 Sales teams building account lists of fast-growing YC-backed companies.
• 💼 Recruiters looking for startups that are currently hiring.
• 📈 Investors and analysts tracking cohorts, categories, and regions across YC batches.
• 🧭 Market researchers mapping startup activity in sectors such as AI, fintech, healthcare, climate, and developer tools.
• 🧱 Data platforms enriching company databases with public YC metadata.
• 📰 Journalists and newsletter writers following new YC launches and startup trends.

Why use this actor?

YC company information is useful, but manually searching the directory is slow and hard to repeat. This actor gives you a repeatable, API-friendly way to collect the public records you need.

Benefits include:

• 🔎 Keyword search across public YC company information.
• 🎯 Filters for batch, industry, tag, region, hiring status, and launch status.
• 📦 Export-ready JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, and API access through Apify datasets.
• 🧑‍💼 Optional founder enrichment from public profile pages.
• ⏱️ Lightweight runs for quick lead lists and larger market maps.

What data can I extract?

Field	Description
id	YC company identifier when available
name	Company name
slug	YC profile slug
url	Best company URL, usually the external website
ycUrl	Public YC company profile URL
batch	YC batch, for example Summer 2024
oneLiner	Short company pitch
description	Longer public company description
website	External company website
location	Public location string
country	First region/country value from the public record
regions	All public region facets
industry	Primary industry
subindustry	More specific industry category
industries	All public industry facets
tags	Public company tags
isHiring	Whether YC marks the company as hiring
teamSize	Team size when available
status	Public YC company status
stage	Company stage when available
launchedAt	Public launch timestamp as ISO date
logoUrl	Public logo URL
topCompany	YC top-company flag when present
nonprofit	Nonprofit flag when present
founders	Optional public founder details
linkedinUrl	Optional company LinkedIn URL from profile page
twitterUrl	Optional X/Twitter URL from profile page
githubUrl	Optional GitHub URL from profile page
scrapedAt	Timestamp of extraction

How much does it cost to scrape YC companies?

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing. You pay a small start fee for each run and a per-company result fee for each saved dataset item. The input prefill is intentionally small so your first run stays inexpensive.

Charge	When it applies	Price
Start	Once per run	$0.005
Company result	Each YC company saved to the dataset	From $0.000028311 per company on the Bronze tier

Estimated run costs:

Companies saved	Estimated cost on Bronze tier
10	about $0.0053
25	about $0.0057
100	about $0.0078
1,000	about $0.0333

The Apify Free plan includes monthly platform credits. With typical free monthly credits, the prefilled 25-company test run is usually covered many times over before you pay out of pocket. Larger exports scale predictably with the number of company records saved.

How to use Y Combinator Companies Scraper

1. Open the actor on Apify.
2. Enter a search query such as ai, fintech, developer tools, or leave it blank.
3. Add optional filters such as a YC batch, industries, tags, regions, hiring status, or launch status.
4. Set maxItems to the number of company records you want.
5. Enable includeProfileDetails only when you need founders or public social links.
6. Click Start.
7. Download results from the dataset in JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or HTML.

Input options

Search query

Use query to search for companies by keyword. Examples:

• ai
• fintech
• climate
• developer tools
• healthcare

Maximum companies

Use maxItems to limit output size. A small value such as 25 is best for testing. Larger values are useful for full batch or category exports.

YC batch

Use batch for exact batch names such as:

• Summer 2024
• Winter 2025
• Spring 2025
• Summer 2023

Industries

Use industries to filter by public YC industry facets. Common examples include:

• B2B
• Consumer
• Fintech
• Healthcare
• Industrials

Tags

Use tags to narrow by public tags such as:

• SaaS
• AI
• Developer Tools
• Marketplace
• Fintech

Regions

Use regions for public location facets such as:

• United States of America
• America / Canada
• Europe
• South Asia
• Remote
• Partly Remote

Hiring status

Use isHiring to collect only companies marked as hiring or only companies not marked as hiring. Leave it empty to include both.

Launch status

Use launchStatus for exact public statuses such as Active, Public, Acquired, or Inactive.

Profile details

Set includeProfileDetails to true when you need founder names and public profile links. This option visits each public YC company profile, so it is slower than directory-only extraction.

Example input

{
  "query": "ai",
  "batch": "Summer 2024",
  "industries": ["B2B"],
  "maxItems": 25,
  "includeProfileDetails": false
}

Example output

{
  "id": "29798",
  "name": "&AI",
  "slug": "ai-2",
  "url": "https://www.tryandai.com/",
  "ycUrl": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/ai-2",
  "batch": "Summer 2024",
  "oneLiner": "Collaborative workspace for patent litigators",
  "website": "https://www.tryandai.com/",
  "location": "San Francisco, CA, USA",
  "industry": "B2B",
  "tags": ["SaaS", "B2B", "LegalTech"],
  "isHiring": false,
  "teamSize": 13,
  "status": "Active",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-14T13:09:21.870Z"
}

Tips for best results

• Start with a small maxItems value while testing filters.
• Use exact YC batch names when filtering by batch.
• Combine query with filters to create focused lead lists.
• Leave query empty if you want all companies that match a batch or region.
• Enable profile details only when founder information is important.

Common workflows

Build a YC AI company lead list

Set query to ai, choose a recent batch, and set maxItems to the number of leads you need.

Find hiring YC startups

Set isHiring to true, add a region such as Europe or United States of America, and export the dataset to CSV.

Map a YC batch

Set batch to a specific cohort and leave query empty to export companies from that batch.

Track startup categories

Use industry and tag filters to create repeatable category snapshots, such as fintech marketplaces or healthcare AI companies.

Integrations

Use this actor with:

• 📊 Google Sheets or Airtable for lead review.
• 🧑‍💼 CRM tools for startup account lists.
• 📬 Email enrichment workflows after exporting company websites.
• 🧠 BI dashboards for market and cohort analysis.
• 🔁 Scheduled Apify runs to monitor new results over time.

API usage

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('fetch_cat/y-combinator-companies-scraper').call({
  query: 'ai',
  batch: 'Summer 2024',
  maxItems: 25
});

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

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient
import os

client = ApifyClient(os.environ['APIFY_TOKEN'])
run = client.actor('fetch_cat/y-combinator-companies-scraper').call(run_input={
    'query': 'fintech',
    'regions': ['Europe'],
    'isHiring': True,
    'maxItems': 25,
})

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

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/fetch_cat~y-combinator-companies-scraper/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query":"ai","batch":"Summer 2024","maxItems":25}'

MCP usage

You can use the actor through Apify MCP in Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or other MCP-compatible tools.

MCP server URL:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch_cat/y-combinator-companies-scraper

Claude Code setup:

$claude mcp add apify-yc-companies "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch_cat/y-combinator-companies-scraper"

Claude Desktop JSON config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-yc-companies": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch_cat/y-combinator-companies-scraper"
    }
  }
}

Example prompts:

• "Find 25 YC Summer 2024 B2B AI companies and summarize their websites."
• "Create a CSV of YC startups in Europe that are hiring."
• "Compare recent YC fintech companies by batch, location, and team size."

Scheduling

Schedule the actor to run weekly or monthly if you want to monitor changes in YC company categories. For example, you can run a saved input for query=ai and isHiring=true every Monday, then send the dataset to a spreadsheet or webhook.

Data freshness

The actor extracts currently visible public directory data at run time. YC may update company records, batches, tags, hiring flags, and profile information independently. Use scrapedAt to identify when each record was collected.

Limits

• The actor returns public YC company data only.
• Some companies may have fewer public fields than others.
• Optional founder and social-link data depends on what is visible on each public profile page.
• Exact filter values must match YC's public facets.

FAQ

Can I scrape all YC companies?

Yes. Leave query empty, avoid narrow filters, and set maxItems to the number of company records you need.

Does the actor include founder data?

Yes, when includeProfileDetails is enabled and founder information is visible on the public YC profile page.

Troubleshooting

Why did I get zero results?

Check whether your filters are too narrow. Try removing one filter at a time, use a broader query, or leave query empty when filtering by batch.

Why are founder fields missing?

Founder fields are only included when includeProfileDetails is enabled and the information is visible on the public company profile.

Why is a region not matching?

Region filters must use YC's public facet names. Try common values such as Europe, America / Canada, United States of America, Remote, or Partly Remote.

Legality and responsible use

This actor extracts public information from public YC company pages and directory results. Use the data responsibly, respect applicable laws and regulations, and avoid using scraped data for spam, harassment, or prohibited profiling. If you combine this dataset with other data, make sure your workflow complies with privacy, marketing, and platform rules in your jurisdiction.

Related scrapers

Explore other Apify actors by fetch_cat for lead generation, company monitoring, web research, and data enrichment workflows:

• Google Maps Lead Finder — collect local business leads from Google Maps.
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• Website Change Monitor — track page changes and competitor updates.
• Craigslist Classifieds Scraper — scrape public Craigslist listings.

Changelog

0.1

Initial version with keyword search, batch, industry, tag, region, hiring, status filters, and optional profile details.