Y Combinator Companies Scraper

Scrape company profiles from the Y Combinator startup directory. Returns name, website, one-liner, description, team size, location, industry, batch, funding stage, hiring status, and more — covering 5,900+ funded startups from W05 to the latest cohort.

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Y Combinator Companies Scraper Features

• Extracts all 5,900+ public YC companies in a few API calls — no pagination headache, no browser required
• Filters by YC batch using shorthand (W21) or full names (Winter 2021), industry, region, or hiring status
• Supports full-text search across company names, descriptions, and one-liners
• Returns 20 structured fields per company: name, slug, website, description, team size, stage, tags, and more
• Pure API scraping against YC's Algolia index — no proxies needed, no rendering overhead
• Handles Algolia key rotation automatically by extracting the key fresh from YC on each run

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What Can You Do With YC Company Data?

• Lead generation teams — Build prospecting lists of active YC companies hiring in your target industry, filtered by batch and region
• VC and angel investors — Track new cohort companies by batch, industry, and funding stage to find deals before they're oversubscribed
• Researchers and journalists — Analyze trends across YC batches: industry distribution, hiring velocity, company survival rates
• Startup founders — Research competitors and peers funded by YC, identify potential customers or co-founders
• Recruiters — Filter YC companies currently hiring to source engineering and design talent from founder-led teams
• Market intelligence tools — Feed into competitive intelligence platforms that monitor the startup ecosystem

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How Y Combinator Companies Scraper Works

1. On each run, the scraper fetches the YC companies page and extracts the Algolia search key injected by YC's server — this keeps the actor working even as YC rotates keys.
2. It posts search requests to YC's Algolia index (YCCompany_production) with your filters applied, pulling up to 1,000 companies per page.
3. Each raw Algolia hit is transformed into a clean, typed record matching the output schema.
4. Records are saved to the Apify dataset. A full run without filters returns all 5,900+ companies in under a minute.

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Input

{
  "maxItems": 50,
  "query": "climate",
  "batch": "W24",
  "industry": "Climatetech",
  "region": "United States of America",
  "hiring_only": true
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
maxItems	integer	10	Maximum number of companies to return. Leave blank to return all matching companies.
query	string	—	Full-text search query. Matches company names, one-liners, and descriptions.
batch	string	—	Filter by YC batch. Accepts shorthand (W21, S22) or full name (Winter 2021, Summer 2022, Spring 2026).
industry	string	—	Filter by industry. Examples: Fintech, Healthcare, B2B, Consumer, Climatetech.
region	string	—	Filter by region. Examples: United States of America, Europe, India.
hiring_only	boolean	false	When true, returns only companies currently listed as actively hiring.

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Y Combinator Companies Scraper Output Fields

{
  "id": 271,
  "name": "Airbnb",
  "slug": "airbnb",
  "website": "http://airbnb.com",
  "one_liner": "Book accommodations around the world.",
  "long_description": "Founded in August of 2008 and based in San Francisco...",
  "batch": "Winter 2009",
  "status": "Public",
  "stage": "Growth",
  "team_size": 6132,
  "industry": "Consumer",
  "subindustry": "Consumer -> Travel, Leisure and Tourism",
  "all_locations": "San Francisco, CA, USA",
  "regions": "[\"United States of America\",\"America / Canada\"]",
  "tags": "[\"Marketplace\",\"Travel\"]",
  "is_hiring": false,
  "top_company": true,
  "nonprofit": false,
  "small_logo_url": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/...",
  "ycombinator_url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/airbnb",
  "scraped_at": "2026-06-10T19:32:56.086Z"
}

Field	Type	Description
id	integer	YC internal company ID
name	string	Company name
slug	string	URL slug (e.g. airbnb)
website	string	Company website URL
one_liner	string	Short one-line description
long_description	string	Full company description
batch	string	YC batch (e.g. Winter 2021)
status	string	Company status: Active, Acquired, Public, Inactive
stage	string	Funding stage: Seed, Early, Growth
team_size	integer	Number of employees
industry	string	Primary industry category
subindustry	string	Industry subcategory
all_locations	string	Company location(s)
regions	string	Geographic regions as JSON array string
tags	string	Industry tags as JSON array string
is_hiring	boolean	Whether the company is currently hiring
top_company	boolean	YC top company designation
nonprofit	boolean	Whether the company is a nonprofit
small_logo_url	string	URL to company logo thumbnail
ycombinator_url	string	Full URL to the YC company profile page
scraped_at	string	ISO timestamp when the record was scraped

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🔍 FAQ

How do I scrape all YC companies?

Y Combinator Companies Scraper returns all public companies by default. Leave maxItems blank and run without filters — you get all 5,900+ companies in a single run.

How much does Y Combinator Companies Scraper cost to run?

Y Combinator Companies Scraper uses pay-per-event pricing at $0.001/company at GOLD+ tier. A full run of all 5,900+ companies costs about $6. Filtered runs cost proportionally less.

Can I filter by YC batch?

Y Combinator Companies Scraper accepts both shorthand and full names. W21 normalizes to Winter 2021, S22 to Summer 2022. Spring batches (introduced in 2026) use the full name: Spring 2026.

Does Y Combinator Companies Scraper need proxies?

No. YC's Algolia index is a public search API accessible from datacenter IPs. No proxies, no browser, no CAPTCHA.

What data is included for each company?

Y Combinator Companies Scraper returns 20 fields per company: name, website, description, team size, batch, industry, funding stage, hiring status, location, tags, and logo URL. Founder-level bios are not in the Algolia index.

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Need More Features?

Need CSV export, founder contact details, or news mentions? File an issue or get in touch.

Why Use Y Combinator Companies Scraper?

• No proxy cost — pure Algolia API, datacenter-accessible, fast and cheap
• Fresh credentials every run — the Algolia key rotates; the scraper re-extracts it on each run so you never hit a stale-key failure six weeks after building your pipeline
• Batch shorthand support — W21 works. Winter 2021 also works. You shouldn't have to look up the format to use a filter.