Y Combinator Companies Scraper

Search and export public Y Combinator company profiles by batch, industry, tag, region, hiring status, and keyword.

Use this actor to turn the YC company directory into a clean startup dataset for lead generation, market mapping, recruiting, investment research, and enrichment pipelines. Results can be downloaded as CSV, JSON, Excel, XML, RSS, or used through the Apify Dataset API.

At a glance

• Startup lead lists: Export YC company names, websites, YC profile URLs, batches, one-liners, locations, industries, tags, team size, and status.
• Focused filters: Combine keyword search with batch, industry, tag, region, hiring, and launch-status filters.
• Founder context: Enable profile details when you need founder names and public social links from individual YC profile pages.
• Market maps: Compare YC companies by category, geography, batch, and hiring signal.
• API-ready data: Feed structured startup rows into CRMs, spreadsheets, BI tools, agents, or enrichment workflows.

What can it do?

Y Combinator Companies Scraper reads public YC company directory data and saves one dataset row per matching company.

• Search the directory: Use query for names, one-liners, descriptions, tags, and related public fields.
• Filter by YC attributes: Narrow results by batch, industries, tags, regions, isHiring, or launchStatus.
• Control result volume: Set maxItems to keep test runs small or scale up for larger exports.
• Add profile details: Turn on includeProfileDetails when founder names and public founder links are worth the slower run.
• Export repeatably: Schedule the actor to refresh startup lists or category maps over time.

Common workflows

• Sales prospecting: Find YC companies in a market such as AI, fintech, devtools, healthcare, or marketplaces.
• Recruiting research: Filter for hiring companies by region or batch and export the list to a sourcing workflow.
• Investor mapping: Compare cohorts, industries, stages, and regions for thesis or pipeline research.
• Competitive intelligence: Track companies in a category and monitor new batches as they appear.
• Data enrichment: Use YC URLs and websites as stable join keys for downstream enrichment.

Example input

{
  "query": "AI",
  "batch": "Summer 2024",
  "regions": ["United States of America"],
  "isHiring": true,
  "maxItems": 50,
  "includeProfileDetails": true
}

Example output

{
  "id": "29798",
  "name": "&AI",
  "slug": "ai-2",
  "url": "https://www.tryandai.com/",
  "ycUrl": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/ai-2",
  "batch": "Summer 2024",
  "oneLiner": "Collaborative workspace for patent litigators",
  "website": "https://www.tryandai.com/",
  "location": "San Francisco, CA, USA",
  "industry": "B2B",
  "tags": ["SaaS", "B2B", "LegalTech"],
  "isHiring": false,
  "teamSize": 13,
  "status": "Active",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-14T13:09:21.870Z"
}

Tips for best results

• Start small: Use maxItems: 25 while testing a new filter combination.
• Use exact batch names: Batch filters work best with full values such as Summer 2024.
• Combine filters: Pair query with regions, tags, or isHiring for focused lists.
• Profile details cost time: Enable includeProfileDetails only when founder fields matter.
• Schedule snapshots: Run the same input regularly to monitor a category or batch over time.

API and integrations

• Use the Apify API or SDK to run the actor from Node.js, Python, cURL, Make, Zapier, or your own agent workflow.
• Export datasets as CSV, JSON, Excel, XML, RSS, or stream rows through the Dataset API.
• Join YC company rows with enrichment actors using website or ycUrl.
• Use the actor as a lightweight YC company data API for dashboards and prospecting tools.

MCP and AI agents

Use the official Apify MCP server when you want AI tools to run this Actor directly.

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=fetch_cat/y-combinator-companies-scraper

Example prompt: "Find YC companies in AI developer tools that are hiring, then return websites, batches, founder names, and YC profile URLs."

Limits and responsible use

• The actor extracts public YC company data. It does not access private YC accounts or non-public records.
• Founder and social fields depend on what is visible on each public company profile.
• Very broad searches can take longer, especially with includeProfileDetails enabled.
• Review and use exported data in line with Apify's Terms of Service and applicable privacy rules.