YC New Founders Tracker MCP

Track new Y Combinator founders from YCDB.io as they announce their startups, enriching profiles with LinkedIn data, funding history, and hiring signals for actionable startup intelligence.

Overview

Monitor the latest Y Combinator batches to discover newly funded founders before they appear in mainstream tech news. YCDB.io aggregates YC company data including batch assignments, founder names, and company descriptions. Within days of demo day, founders update LinkedIn profiles, raise seed rounds, and begin hiring—creating a narrow window of opportunity for investors, recruiters, and partners who move fast. This actor automates batch monitoring and founder enrichment so you never miss a cohort's emerging talent.

Features

• YCDB batch discovery: Access all YC companies by batch code (W25, S24, W24, etc.) with sector filtering
• LinkedIn profile enrichment: Get founder LinkedIn URLs, previous companies, and career history
• Funding intelligence: Estimated total raised and valuation figures for portfolio tracking
• Hiring signal detection: Identify founders actively recruiting engineers, designers, or sales staff
• Tech stack extraction: Detect programming languages, frameworks, and cloud providers from company websites
• CRM-ready output: Structured JSON formatted for direct import into HubSpot, Salesforce, or Airtable
• Sector filtering: Narrow results by healthcare, fintech, AI/ML, devtools, consumer, or cross-category
• Batch history access: Query any historical YC batch back to 2005

Use Cases

• Pre-seed sourcing: Identify promising founders in AI, biotech, and infrastructure before they announce funding—position ahead of VCs who move at demo day
• Talent acquisition: Surface YC founders actively hiring engineers; reach out within the first two weeks post-demo when inboxes are still manageable
• Competitive intelligence: Track which sectors YC is betting on by monitoring batch composition and sector distribution shifts across seasons
• Deal flow enrichment: Add YC batch companies to your CRM with enriched founder profiles, estimated valuations, and hiring status automatically populated
• Hiring trend analysis: Detect emerging demand signals by tracking which tech stacks and roles YC companies are recruiting for in real-time
• Investor relationship building: Build warm introducer networks by mapping founder connections to previous companies and identifying mutual contacts

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Apify account (free tier available)
• Node.js 18+ for local testing
• LinkedIn API access (optional, for full enrichment)

1-minute setup

# Install Apify CLI
npm install -g apify-cli

# Clone the actor
apify actors:create yc-new-founders-tracker

# Set environment variable
export APIFY_TOKEN=your_apify_token

# Run locally with sector filter
node main.js --batch W25 --sector healthcare --maxResults 5

MCP Quick Start

{
  "toolName": "enrich_founders",
  "arguments": {
    "batch": "W25",
    "sector": "healthcare",
    "maxResults": 5
  }
}

Input Parameters

Field	Type	Default	Description
batch	string	W25	Y Combinator batch code (e.g. W25, S24, W24, S23)
sector	string	healthcare	Sector filter: healthcare, fintech, ai, devtools, consumer, b2b, infrastructure
maxResults	integer	5	Max number of founders to enrich (capped at 10)

Output

{
  "batch": "W25",
  "sector": "healthcare",
  "total_founders": 2,
  "founders": [
    {
      "batch": "W25",
      "company_name": "MedAI",
      "founder_name": "Jane Smith",
      "linkedin_url": "https://linkedin.com/in/janesmith",
      "previous_companies": ["Google", "DeepMind"],
      "total_raised": "$12M",
      "valuation_estimate": "$60M",
      "hiring_signals": ["hiring-engineers", "remote-first"],
      "tech_stack": ["Python", "TensorFlow", "AWS"],
      "sector": "healthcare"
    }
  ],
  "metadata": {
    "ycdb_source": "https://ycdb.io",
    "enriched_at": "2026-05-15T12:00:00Z",
    "max_results_requested": 5
  }
}

Pricing

PPE: $0.05 per enriched founder profile.

Scenario	Founders	Cost
Single batch, small team	10	$0.50
Multiple batches, mid-size	100	$5.00
Portfolio monitoring	500	$25.00

Cost estimation: 10 founders = $0.50, 100 founders = $5.00.

Data Sources

• YCDB.io for YC batch company data, founder names, and company descriptions
• LinkedIn for founder profile enrichment (requires API access; falls back to public data)
• Company websites for tech stack detection and hiring signals
• YC website for batch announcements and demo day data

Troubleshooting

"Empty results for batch": Verify the batch code format. YC uses season + year (W=winter, S=summer), e.g., W25, S24, W24. Try uppercase and check YCDB.io for valid batch codes.

"LinkedIn enrichment failed": LinkedIn has strict rate limits. The actor retries 3 times with backoff. If enrichment consistently fails, the output will still include YCDB data without LinkedIn signals. Ensure your LinkedIn API key is valid.

"maxResults capped at 10": LinkedIn API quotas limit enrichment throughput. For bulk processing (100+ founders), contact support to discuss enterprise tier with higher rate limits.

"Sector filter returned no results": Not all YC companies are tagged in YCDB. Try broader sectors (ai, devtools) or omit the sector filter entirely to see all companies in a batch.

"Stale batch data": YCDB updates weekly but YC demo day data may lag. For the most current founder info, cross-reference with YC's official batch pages at ycombinator.com/companies.

"Missing valuation estimates": Early-stage companies (pre-seed, seed) often don't disclose valuations. The actor estimates based onYC deal terms and comparable rounds when available.