YC Startup Search — Deal Sourcing API (Y Combinator Directory)

Search a live startup directory for deal sourcing. Built for VCs, deal scouts, founders and AI agents.

Data source note: Wellfound (AngelList) serves a DataDome anti-bot challenge to server traffic, so this actor runs on the Y Combinator company directory (public search index) — a live, key-free startup directory with the same shape of data (name, markets, stage, team size, location, remote, website, profile URL). Records carry source: "ycombinator". If the source is blocked or unreachable, the run fails with a message saying why — it never returns a green run with no explanation, and nothing is charged.

📊 Sample Output

name	status	location	all_locations	website	wellfound_url
Trébol	Active	Bogotá, Bogota, Colombia	Bogotá, Bogota, Colombia	https://gotrebol.com/	https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/trebol
Curacel	Active	London, England, United Kingdom	London, England, United Kingdom	https://curacel.co	https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/curacel
Landeed	Active	Hyderabad, Telangana, India	Hyderabad, Telangana, India	https://www.landeed.com/	https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/landeed
Unlayer	Active	San Francisco, CA, USA	San Francisco, CA, USA	https://unlayer.com	https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/unlayer
GuruHotel	Active	Mexico City, CDMX, Mexico	Mexico City, CDMX, Mexico; Remote	https://guruhotel.com	https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/guruhotel
Sepal AI	Acquired	San Francisco, CA, USA	San Francisco, CA, USA	https://www.sepalai.com	https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/sepal-ai

Real rows from run vd0W2pwBIkaF5JTjL on build 0.0.12 (2026-09-25), unedited apart from masked emails/phones and shortened long text; fields the source does not publish are empty.

🔧 Input reference

Field	Type	Default	What it does
query	string	"ai infrastructure"	Free-text search term (company name, tag, founder keyword). Leave empty to browse by filters only.
markets	array	["AI", "SaaS"]	Industry tags to filter by (e.g. 'SaaS', 'Fintech', 'Healthcare', 'AI', 'Climate'). Multiple values OR'd.
stages	array	["Seed", "Series A"]	Funding stages to include. Allowed values: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C, Series D, Series E+, Public, Acquired.
locations	array	["San Francisco", "Remote"]	City or region filters (e.g. 'San Francisco', 'New York', 'Remote', 'London'). Multiple values OR'd.
team_size_range	string (any, 1-10, 11-50, 51-200, 201-500, 501-1000, 1001+)	"11-50"	Team size bucket. One of: 1-10, 11-50, 51-200, 201-500, 501-1000, 1001+
remote_only	boolean	false	If true, only return companies marked remote-friendly on YC.
limit	integer	25	Maximum number of company records to return. Hard cap 500 per run to keep cost predictable.

🧾 JSON sample record

One real record from run vd0W2pwBIkaF5JTjL (emails/phones masked, long text shortened):

{
  "name": "Trébol",
  "markets": [
    "B2B",
    "Finance and Accounting",
    "Fintech",
    "SaaS",
    "Legal",
    "Enterprise"
  ],
  "stage": "Early",
  "status": "Active",
  "team_size": 14,
  "location": "Bogotá, Bogota, Colombia",
  "all_locations": "Bogotá, Bogota, Colombia",
  "remote_friendly": true,
  "website": "https://gotrebol.com/",
  "wellfound_url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/trebol",
  "source_url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/trebol",
  "source": "ycombinator",
  "yc_batch": "Winter 2022",
  "one_liner": "Your back-office, on autopilot",
  "industries": [
    "B2B",
    "Finance and Accounting"
  ],
  "regions": [
    "Colombia",
    "Latin America",
    "Remote",
    "Partly Remote"
  ],
  "is_hiring": true,
  "data_source": "live"
}

💰 Pricing

Event	Price (USD)	When it is charged
Actor Start (apify-actor-start)	$0.005	Charged when the Actor starts running. Number of events charged depends on Actor memory (one event per GB, minimum one event).
Company record (company-record)	$0.05	Charged once per Y Combinator company record returned.

Pay-per-event: you pay only for what the run delivers. A run that delivers nothing bills no result events (only the actor-start event, when the actor defines one). Example: a run that delivers 100 results costs 100 × $0.05 = $5.00 plus the start fee.

🔗 Related Actors

More from the NexGenData Startup, VC & funding family:

• a16z Portfolio Scraper — VC Portfolio Companies API
• Bessemer Portfolio Scraper — VC Portfolio API
• Crunchbase News Scraper — Funding News API
• Founders Fund Portfolio Scraper — Portfolio API

12 more in this family on the NexGenData Store page.

⏰ Run this as a market watch (recommended)

Schedule a weekly sweep and catch new companies as they land:

{
  "query": "climate",
  "limit": 100
}

Weekly cron (0 8 * * 1) turns this into an always-on market watch.

📊 What you get

Clean JSON, one record per company (full output has 18 fields):

• all_locations — All locations
• industries — Industries
• is_hiring — Is hiring
• location — Location
• markets — Markets
• name — Name
• one_liner — One liner
• regions — Regions
• remote_friendly — Remote friendly
• source — Source

Pricing: $0.05 per company record (Pay-Per-Event), plus the standard $0.005 Actor start event — about 20 companies per $1. Rows are charged only when a real company record is delivered; blocked runs and empty results charge nothing.

🤖 Use with AI agents

Point Claude, the OpenAI Agents SDK, an n8n flow or any MCP-aware client at it and run startup directory search for deal sourcing on demand.

Sample agent prompt:

Find startups in a market that are hiring.

Agentic payments (x402): Supports agentic payment via x402 — agents can call this actor with USDC, no API key required.

🔗 Related funding actors

Startup funding & deal-sourcing web: Startup Funding Tracker, Form D Scraper, Form D Tracker, Private Funding Intelligence, Pre-IPO Secondary Prices

Funding → outreach chain (a funding event is a lead): Company Enrichment, Email/Contact Extractor, B2B Leads Finder

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Data from public funding, filing and directory sources.