# YC Startups & Founders Scraper (Y Combinator) (`kravennagen/yc-company-scraper`) Actor

Extract structured Y Combinator startup data, founder LinkedIn profiles, bios, batches, tech tags, and job openings via direct API.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/kravennagen/yc-company-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Morgane Flamant](https://apify.com/kravennagen) (community)
- **Categories:** Lead generation, Jobs, Developer tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.80 / 1,000 extracted yc startups

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## 🚀 Y Combinator (YC) Startups & Directory Scraper

A high-performance **Apify Actor** written in Python to extract comprehensive company metadata, founder profiles, social links, tech tags, and open job postings directly from Y Combinator's directory API and pages.

***

### ✨ Features

- **⚡ Direct Algolia API Queries**: Queries Y Combinator's underlying search index asynchronously without heavy browser automation (~128MB RAM footprint).
- **👥 Founder Profiles & Bio Details**: Extract founder names, titles, bios, LinkedIn, Twitter, and avatar URLs.
- **💼 Job Postings Integration**: Optionally scrape job listings (salary ranges, equity ranges, experience, visa sponsorship, required skills) for each company.
- **🏷️ Rich Filtering**: Filter by YC batch (e.g., `W24`, `S23`), industry, hiring status, top YC companies, or search keywords.
- **📊 Standardized Pydantic Output**: Outputs clean, validated JSON records compatible with Apify Datasets and export formats (JSON, CSV, Excel).

***

### 📥 Input Parameters

The Actor accepts the following JSON input options:

| Field | Type | Default | Description |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| `query` | `string` | `null` | Keyword filter (e.g., `"AI"`, `"Fintech"`, `"DevOps"`). |
| `batches` | `array` | `["W24", "S24"]` | List of YC batch codes to filter (e.g. `["W24"]`, `["S23"]`). |
| `industries` | `array` | `[]` | Filter by industry (e.g. `["B2B"]`, `["Healthcare"]`). |
| `isHiringOnly` | `boolean` | `false` | When enabled, only returns companies with active job listings. |
| `topCompaniesOnly` | `boolean` | `false` | When enabled, only returns companies flagged as top YC companies. |
| `scrapeJobs` | `boolean` | `false` | When enabled, scrapes individual job postings for each company. |
| `maxItems` | `integer` | `100` | Maximum number of companies to scrape (set `0` for unlimited). |

#### Example Input

```json
{
  "query": "AI",
  "batches": ["W24", "S24"],
  "isHiringOnly": true,
  "scrapeJobs": true,
  "maxItems": 50
}
```

***

### 📤 Output Schema

Each item pushed to the dataset represents a full Y Combinator startup record:

```json
{
  "id": 29381,
  "name": "Example AI",
  "slug": "example-ai",
  "yc_url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/example-ai",
  "website": "https://example.ai",
  "one_liner": "Autonomous workflow automation platform",
  "long_description": "Example AI helps teams automate complex multi-step workflows using generative AI...",
  "batch": "W24",
  "batch_name": "Winter 2024",
  "status": "Active",
  "industry": "B2B",
  "subindustry": "Engineering, Product and Design",
  "tags": ["AI", "Developer Tools", "B2B"],
  "locations": ["San Francisco, CA, USA"],
  "team_size": 12,
  "is_hiring": true,
  "is_top_company": false,
  "linkedin_url": "https://linkedin.com/company/example-ai",
  "twitter_url": "https://twitter.com/example_ai",
  "github_url": "https://github.com/example-ai",
  "founders": [
    {
      "full_name": "Jane Doe",
      "title": "CEO & Co-founder",
      "founder_bio": "Previously AI researcher at Stanford...",
      "linkedin_url": "https://linkedin.com/in/janedoe",
      "twitter_url": "https://twitter.com/janedoe"
    }
  ],
  "jobs": [
    {
      "id": 98765,
      "title": "Senior AI Engineer",
      "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/example-ai/jobs/98765-senior-ai-engineer",
      "location": "San Francisco, CA",
      "job_type": "Full-time",
      "salary_range": "$160k - $220k",
      "equity_range": "0.25% - 0.50%",
      "skills": ["Python", "PyTorch", "LLMs"]
    }
  ]
}
```

***

### 🚀 Running Locally

#### Step 1: Install Dependencies

```bash
pip install -r requirements.txt
```

#### Step 2: Run the Actor

```bash
python -m src
```

***

### 🐳 Docker Support

To build and run containerized:

```bash
docker build -t yc-company-scraper .
docker run -it yc-company-scraper
```

# Actor input Schema

## `query` (type: `string`):

Filter by keyword, e.g. "AI", "Fintech", "DevOps"

## `batches` (type: `array`):

Filter by YC batch codes, e.g. W24, S23, W23. Supports Winter (W), Summer (S), Fall (F), Spring (Sp).

## `industries` (type: `array`):

Filter by industry, e.g. B2B, Healthcare, Consumer, Fintech

## `isHiringOnly` (type: `boolean`):

When enabled, only returns companies that have active job listings.

## `topCompaniesOnly` (type: `boolean`):

When enabled, only returns companies marked as top YC companies (e.g. Stripe, Airbnb).

## `scrapeJobs` (type: `boolean`):

When enabled, also extracts individual job posting details for each company.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of companies to retrieve. Set to 0 for unlimited.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "batches": [
    "W24",
    "S24"
  ],
  "isHiringOnly": false,
  "topCompaniesOnly": false,
  "scrapeJobs": false,
  "maxItems": 100
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Clean structured Y Combinator startup records

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "batches": [
        "W24",
        "S24"
    ],
    "maxItems": 100
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("kravennagen/yc-company-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "batches": [
        "W24",
        "S24",
    ],
    "maxItems": 100,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("kravennagen/yc-company-scraper").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "batches": [
    "W24",
    "S24"
  ],
  "maxItems": 100
}' |
apify call kravennagen/yc-company-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,kravennagen/yc-company-scraper"
        }
    }
}

```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/n3dC1a6h3sdbk2qrI/builds/bgi1YGQOSVNAn4WTo/openapi.json