Y Combinator Companies Scraper - Startup Directory Data

Scrape the public Y Combinator Startup Directory into a clean company dataset. The actor searches YC companies by keyword, batch, hiring status, industry, and region, then returns company name, website, YC profile URL, one-liner, long description, batch, status, industry, tags, team size, locations, hiring flag, logo, and launch metadata. Export to JSON/CSV/Excel, run on a schedule, call via API, or connect to Make, Zapier or n8n.

What is the Y Combinator Companies Scraper?

Y Combinator is one of the most watched startup accelerators in the world. Its public directory is a valuable source for founder research, venture scouting, B2B prospecting, recruiting, startup market maps, and account-based sales. This actor turns that directory into structured data that can be filtered, exported, monitored, and combined with contact enrichment workflows.

The actor reads YC's public company search data through the same public search infrastructure used by the directory page. It does not require a login, browser, cookie, or private API key. The default input targets the current Summer 2026 batch so daily runs return fresh, non-empty data, but you can change the batch, search all companies, or filter to companies marked as hiring.

What data does it extract?

• YC company ID and slug
• Company name
• YC profile URL
• Website
• One-line summary
• Long description
• YC batch
• Status
• Industry and subindustry
• Industry and region arrays
• Stage
• Team size
• Locations
• Hiring flag
• Top company flag
• Nonprofit flag
• Tags
• Logo URL
• Launch timestamp

Input

Field	Type	Description
query	string	Optional keyword search across companies.
batch	string	YC batch filter such as Summer 2026; use all to disable.
isHiring	boolean	Return only companies marked as hiring.
industry	string	Optional exact YC industry filter.
region	string	Optional exact YC region filter.
maxResults	integer	Maximum companies to return.

Example input

{
  "query": "AI",
  "batch": "Summer 2026",
  "isHiring": false,
  "maxResults": 50
}

To search all hiring YC companies:

{
  "batch": "all",
  "isHiring": true,
  "maxResults": 200
}

Output

{
  "id": 29312,
  "name": "Example Startup",
  "slug": "example-startup",
  "url": "https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/example-startup",
  "website": "https://example.com",
  "one_liner": "AI workflow automation for finance teams.",
  "long_description": "Example Startup helps finance teams...",
  "batch": "Summer 2026",
  "status": "Active",
  "industry": "B2B",
  "subindustry": "Finance and Accounting",
  "industries": ["B2B"],
  "regions": ["United States of America"],
  "stage": "Early",
  "team_size": 4,
  "locations": "San Francisco",
  "is_hiring": true,
  "top_company": false,
  "nonprofit": false,
  "tags": ["Fintech", "AI"],
  "logo": "https://...",
  "launched_at": 1780000000,
  "source": "ycombinator",
  "query": "AI",
  "filters": "batch:\"Summer 2026\""
}

Use cases

• B2B lead generation: find newly funded startups by industry, batch, region, or hiring status.
• Investor research: build startup market maps from YC cohorts and categories.
• Recruiting intelligence: monitor YC companies that are actively hiring.
• Sales triggers: identify fast-growing companies with new teams, websites, and business descriptions.

Practical tips

Use batch for cohort-based research and batch: all for broader prospecting. For current startup discovery, the latest batch is usually the most useful. For mature-account research, search all companies and filter by industry, region, or hiring status. The is_hiring flag is especially useful for vendors selling recruiting tools, HR software, office services, developer tooling, cloud infrastructure, or growth services.

For prospecting workflows, export the dataset and enrich the website field with contact, email, LinkedIn, or technology-stack actors. For investment workflows, group by industry, subindustry, stage, and batch. For content and SEO work, use the company descriptions to build market maps or identify category trends.

Reliability and performance

The actor uses direct HTTP requests and YC's public search index. It fetches the current search configuration from the public directory page at runtime, so it is less brittle than hardcoding a static key. Runs are fast, low-memory, and suitable for scheduled monitoring. If a query returns no companies, broaden the batch or remove exact filters.

FAQ

Does it require a YC account? No. It uses public directory data.

Can I scrape all YC companies? Yes. Set batch to all and choose a suitable maxResults.

Can I filter by current hiring status? Yes. Enable isHiring.

Does it return emails? No. It returns company and website data. Use a contact enrichment actor for emails.

Does it include founder names? The public search result focuses on company fields. Founder enrichment can be added separately.

Can I schedule cohort monitoring? Yes. Create a task and run it daily or weekly.

Is it legal? The actor reads public directory data. You are responsible for complying with website terms and applicable laws.

How is billing calculated? Pay-per-event billing charges per company result pushed to the dataset.

Can I export to spreadsheets? Yes. Apify datasets export to JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, and RSS.

Why does the default batch change over time? The code default can be updated as YC launches new batches; users can always override it in input.

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Keywords: Y Combinator scraper, YC companies scraper, startup directory scraper, startup leads, YC batch data, startup database, founder research, venture scouting, B2B lead generation, hiring startups, startup market map, company enrichment, Apify startup scraper, YC directory API, startup prospecting

Support and feedback

If this Actor saves time in your workflow, please leave a short Apify Store review. Reviews help other users evaluate the tool and help prioritize maintenance. If a source changes or a field stops populating, open an Actor issue with the run ID, public input, and expected field. Never include passwords, private cookies, or confidential data.