Y Combinator Scraper

Pull every YC-funded company, founder, and open job from ycombinator.com/companies at scale — complete with batch codes, industry verticals, hiring flags, founder LinkedIn and X profiles, salary and equity ranges, and seven social handles per company. Built for VC sourcing teams, recruiters, and B2B sales teams who need a fresh, structured YC alumni dataset without hand-crafting filter URLs or stitching together founder bios one tab at a time.

Why This Scraper?

• Full directory coverage — 44 batches from W05 through F25 — every cohort in YC's public alumni list, from the 2005 founding class to the latest Fall batch, all in one run.
• Eight industry verticals, six team-size bands, eleven regions — multi-select filters for B2B, Consumer, Fintech, Healthcare, Industrials, Education, Government, Real Estate & Construction, plus team-size bands from solo founder up to 500+ and regions including the auto-expanding "Asia" group (covers South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia in one click).
• Founders embedded on every row — full name, title, bio, LinkedIn URL, and X (Twitter) URL for every co-founder, typically 1 to 4 per company, no extra credits charged.
• Open jobs with salary and equity ranges — when a company is hiring, every posting comes with title, location, role, salary range, equity range, required skills, years of experience, and visa-sponsorship status.
• Seven social handles per company — website, LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Crunchbase, GitHub, plus the canonical YC profile URL.
• isHiring quick-filter — flip a single toggle to return only companies actively recruiting today, no URL building required.
• Three input modes in one actor — paste filter URLs (?batch=W24&industry=B2B), paste single-company URLs (/companies/airbnb), or use the guided multi-select filters. Mix all three in the same run.
• Free-text search across the directory — search by company name, tagline, or technology keyword ("AI agents", "developer tools") and get exactly what the YC search box returns.
• camelCase output, ready for production — clean, predictable field names that drop straight into databases, dashboards, and CRMs without renaming.

Use Cases

VC Sourcing & Pipeline Building

• Track every new batch the moment it goes live and triage by vertical
• Build a watchlist of Active companies in your thesis area
• Surface acquired and public alumni to study exit patterns and founder follow-ons

Recruiting & Talent Sourcing

• Pull every YC company actively hiring with isHiring: true plus includeJobs: true
• Filter by team-size band (51 to 200) to target Series A-stage startups
• Capture founder LinkedIn URLs to map alumni networks for warm intros

B2B Sales & ABM

• Build a YC-backed account list for go-to-market motions targeting startup buyers
• Segment by industry vertical (B2B, Fintech) and team size to qualify ICPs
• Refresh on a schedule to catch new launches before competitors do

Competitive & Market Research

• Map every company in a vertical (e.g. all 2024 fintech batch graduates)
• Track industry composition trends across batches over time
• Build adjacency maps from the tags and industries[] fields

Press & Media Monitoring

• Watch for newly launched companies tagged Top Company
• Build founder profile lookups across batches for feature pieces
• Monitor acquisition status changes for scoop coverage

Getting Started

Quick Start

The simplest possible run — fetches the first 100 companies from the full YC directory with founders embedded:

{}

Filter by Batch, Industry, and Hiring Activity

Pull every B2B startup from the two most recent winter and summer batches that's actively hiring:

{
    "batches": ["W24", "S24"],
    "industries": ["B2B"],
    "isHiring": true,
    "maxResults": 200
}

Free-Text Search by Region

Search for AI-agent companies headquartered in the United States:

{
    "searchQuery": "AI agents",
    "regions": ["United States of America"],
    "maxResults": 50
}

Search by URL with Full Job Postings

Paste any YC directory URL with filters pre-applied — the actor parses the querystring and runs the same search. Add includeJobs: true to capture the full open-jobs list:

{
    "startUrls": [
        "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?batch=W24&industry=Fintech&isHiring=true"
    ],
    "includeJobs": true,
    "maxResults": 100
}

Single-Company Deep-Dive

Paste one or more individual company URLs to pull just those rows with full founder and job detail:

{
    "startUrls": [
        "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/airbnb",
        "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/stripe"
    ],
    "includeFounders": true,
    "includeJobs": true
}

Input Reference

Sources

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
startUrls	string[]	[]	YC directory URLs (https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?...) or individual company URLs (https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/<slug>). Mix any combination. Leave empty to use the guided filters below.
searchQuery	string	null	Free-text query against the YC directory. Matches company name, tagline, and tags.

Filters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
batches	string[]	[]	Funding cohorts. Multi-select from 44 batches (Winter 2005 through Fall 2025, plus Imagine K12). Leave empty for all batches.
status	string[]	[]	Operating status: Active, Public, Acquired, or Inactive. Leave empty for all statuses.
regions	string[]	[]	Headquarters region. 11 options including United States, Canada, Europe, United Kingdom, Asia, India, Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Oceania, and Remote.
industries	string[]	[]	Industry vertical: B2B, Consumer, Education, Fintech, Government, Healthcare, Industrials, or Real Estate and Construction.
teamSize	string[]	[]	Team-size band: 1 (solo founder), 2 to 10, 11 to 50, 51 to 200, 201 to 500, or 500+.
isHiring	boolean	false	If on, return only companies with at least one open job listed on YC.

What to Extract

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
includeFounders	boolean	true	Embed each company's founders on the result row — name, title, bio, LinkedIn, and X profile.
includeJobs	boolean	false	Embed each company's open job listings on the result row — title, location, salary, equity, required skills, years of experience, and visa sponsorship.

Limits

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
maxResults	integer	100	Hard cap on total company rows. Set to 0 for no cap (an internal upper limit of 10,000 still applies). The actor stops requesting new pages once this number is reached but keeps the full final page even if it slightly overshoots.

Output

One row per company. founders[] and jobs[] ride along as embedded arrays controlled by the toggles above.

{
    "companyId": "1234",
    "name": "Airbnb",
    "slug": "airbnb",
    "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/airbnb",
    "logo": "https://bookface-images.s3.amazonaws.com/...",
    "shortDescription": "Book accommodations around the world.",
    "longDescription": "Founded in August of 2008 and based in San Francisco...",
    "batch": "Winter 2009",
    "status": "Public",
    "industry": "Consumer",
    "subindustry": "Travel, Leisure and Tourism",
    "industries": ["Consumer", "Travel, Leisure and Tourism"],
    "tags": ["Marketplace", "Travel"],
    "location": "San Francisco, CA, USA",
    "regions": ["United States of America"],
    "country": "USA",
    "yearFounded": 2008,
    "teamSize": 6132,
    "primaryPartner": "Paul Graham",
    "website": "http://airbnb.com",
    "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/company/airbnb",
    "twitter": "https://twitter.com/airbnb",
    "facebook": "https://www.facebook.com/airbnb",
    "crunchbase": "https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb",
    "github": null,
    "isHiring": false,
    "openJobsCount": 0,
    "nonprofit": false,
    "topCompany": true,
    "launchedAt": 1234567890,
    "founders": [
        {
            "id": 5678,
            "name": "Brian Chesky",
            "title": "Co-Founder & CEO",
            "bio": "Brian Chesky is the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb...",
            "linkedin": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianchesky",
            "twitter": "https://twitter.com/bchesky"
        }
    ],
    "jobs": [],
    "scrapedAt": "2026-05-02T14:30:00Z"
}

Core Fields

Field	Type	Description
companyId	string	YC's internal company identifier
name	string	Company name
slug	string	URL slug used in /companies/<slug>
url	string	Canonical YC profile URL
batch	string	Batch name (e.g. Winter 2024, Fall 2025)
status	string	Active, Public, Acquired, or Inactive
industry	string	Top-level industry vertical
subindustry	string	More specific industry category
industries	string[]	All industry tags applied by YC
tags	string[]	Topic tags (e.g. Developer Tools, AI, Marketplace)
teamSize	number	Self-reported employee count
nonprofit	boolean	Whether the company is a nonprofit
topCompany	boolean	YC's "Top Company" badge flag

Description & Branding

Field	Type	Description
shortDescription	string	One-line tagline as shown in the directory
longDescription	string	Full company blurb from the YC profile page
logo	string	Company logo URL
primaryPartner	string	YC partner attached to the company
yearFounded	number	Founding year
launchedAt	number	Unix epoch when the YC profile went live

Location

Field	Type	Description
location	string	Headquarters city and region
regions	string[]	YC region tags (e.g. United States of America, Remote)
country	string	Headquarters country parsed from the location string

Hiring

Field	Type	Description
isHiring	boolean	Whether the company is actively hiring on YC
openJobsCount	number	Number of open jobs at scrape time
jobs	object[]	Open job postings (when includeJobs: true)

Each jobs[] entry contains:

Field	Type	Description
id	string	YC job posting identifier
title	string	Job title
location	string	Posted location
remote	boolean	Whether the role is remote-friendly
type	string	Full-time, part-time, intern, contract, or co-founder
role	string	Engineering, Design, Product, etc.
salaryMin / salaryMax	string	Salary range as published
equityMin / equityMax	string	Equity range as published
skills	string[]	Required skills tags
yearsExperienceMin	number	Minimum years of experience
visaSponsorship	boolean	Whether the company sponsors work visas
applyUrl	string	Direct application link
description	string	Full job description body

Founders

When includeFounders: true, each row carries a founders[] array (1 to 4 entries typical).

Field	Type	Description
id	string	YC founder identifier
name	string	Full name
title	string	Title at the company (e.g. Co-Founder & CEO)
bio	string	Founder biography from the YC profile
linkedin	string	Founder LinkedIn URL
twitter	string	Founder X (Twitter) URL

Social & Web Links

Field	Type	Description
website	string	Company website
linkedin	string	Company LinkedIn URL
twitter	string	Company X (Twitter) URL
facebook	string	Company Facebook URL
crunchbase	string	Company Crunchbase URL
github	string	Company GitHub URL
scrapedAt	string	ISO-8601 UTC timestamp of the run

Tips for Best Results

• Combine batches and industries for tighter cohorts — for example, "all W24 + S24 fintech startups" is one filter combination away.
• Use searchQuery for fuzzy matching — works across company names, taglines, and tags. Great for thematic sweeps like "developer tools" or "AI agents".
• Founder emails are not publicly listed by Y Combinator — the actor returns LinkedIn and X URLs instead, which are typically more useful for warm outreach anyway.
• Turn includeJobs on for hiring sweeps — captures full job descriptions, salary ranges, equity ranges, and visa-sponsorship status in a single pass. Skip it when you only need company and founder data for a faster, leaner run.
• Logo URLs are short-lived signed links — expect them to expire about an hour after the run. Download or rehost the images promptly if you plan to display them yourself.
• Mix URL inputs and guided filters in one run — paste a YC filter URL alongside a few specific /companies/<slug> URLs and the guided filters; the actor handles all three input modes in the same dataset.
• For full coverage of one batch, set maxResults: 0 — the actor automatically fans out across the directory's per-query ceiling and returns every company in the cohort.

Pricing

$2.00 per 1,000 companies returned. No compute charges — you only pay per result returned.

Companies	Estimated Cost
100	$0.20
1,000	$2.00
10,000	$20.00
100,000	$200.00

A "result" is one company row, regardless of how many founders or open jobs ride along in the embedded arrays. Platform fees (compute, storage) are additional and depend on your Apify plan.

Integrations

Export data in JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS. Connect to 1,500+ apps via:

• Zapier / Make / n8n — Workflow automation
• Google Sheets — Direct spreadsheet export
• Airtable — Structured database sync
• Slack / Email — Notifications on new results
• Webhooks — Trigger custom APIs on run completion
• Apify API — Full programmatic access via REST, JavaScript, and Python SDKs

Legal & Ethical Use

This actor is designed for legitimate sourcing, recruiting, market research, and competitive analysis use cases. The data extracted is published openly by Y Combinator on its public alumni directory at ycombinator.com/companies. Users are responsible for complying with applicable laws and Y Combinator's terms of service. Do not use extracted data for spam, harassment, or any illegal purpose. Be mindful of personal-data and outreach-consent regulations (GDPR, CCPA, CAN-SPAM) when contacting founders found in the dataset.