Y Combinator APIycombinator.com ↗
Access YC company profiles, founder directories, partner bios, and startup job listings via 6 structured endpoints. Filter by batch, industry, and hiring status.
What is the Y Combinator API?
The Y Combinator API covers 6 endpoints that expose the full YC ecosystem: searchable company and founder directories, detailed company profiles with founder bios and social links, partner profiles with associated content, and job listings from workatastartup.com. The search_companies endpoint alone returns 11 fields per hit — including batch, team size, industry, and hiring status — and supports faceted filtering across thousands of YC companies.
curl -X GET 'https://api.parse.bot/scraper/303993f2-6efa-4ab4-9310-f02643b002a4/search_companies?page=0&batch=Winter+2024&limit=5&query=AI&industry=B2B&is_hiring=true&top_company=true' \ -H 'X-API-Key: $PARSE_API_KEY'
Search and filter the YC company directory via Algolia. Returns paginated results with company metadata including name, batch, industry, team size, and hiring status. Supports faceted filtering by batch, industry, hiring status, and top-company designation. An empty query returns the full directory in default order.
| Param | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| page | integer | Page number (0-indexed). |
| batch | string | Filter by YC batch name (e.g. 'Winter 2024', 'Summer 2023'). |
| limit | integer | Number of results per page. |
| query | string | Search keyword to match against company name, description, and tags. |
| industry | string | Filter by industry (e.g. 'Fintech', 'B2B', 'Healthcare'). |
| is_hiring | string | Filter by hiring status. Accepts 'true' or 'false'. |
| top_company | string | Filter for YC top companies. Accepts 'true' or 'false'. |
{
"type": "object",
"fields": {
"hits": "array of company objects with id, name, slug, website, one_liner, batch, industry, team_size, tags, status, isHiring, top_company",
"page": "integer - current page number",
"nbHits": "integer - total matching results",
"nbPages": "integer - total pages available",
"hitsPerPage": "integer - results per page"
},
"sample": {
"data": {
"hits": [
{
"id": 29798,
"name": "&AI",
"slug": "ai-2",
"tags": [
"SaaS",
"B2B",
"LegalTech"
],
"batch": "Summer 2024",
"status": "Active",
"website": "https://www.tryandai.com/",
"industry": "B2B",
"isHiring": false,
"one_liner": "Collaborative workspace for patent litigators",
"team_size": 13,
"top_company": false
}
],
"page": 0,
"nbHits": 2807,
"nbPages": 200,
"hitsPerPage": 5
},
"status": "success"
}
}About the Y Combinator API
Company Directory and Profiles
search_companies queries the YC company index with optional filters for batch (e.g. 'Winter 2024'), industry (e.g. 'Fintech', 'B2B'), is_hiring, and top_company designation. Results are paginated and each hit includes id, name, slug, website, one_liner, batch, industry, team_size, tags, status, and isHiring. Passing an empty query returns the full directory. To get full details for a specific company, pass the slug from search results to get_company, which adds founders (with full_name, founder_bio, twitter_url, and linkedin_url), location, and a richer description.
Founder and Partner Profiles
search_founders queries the founder index by name or company keyword. Each hit includes first_name, last_name, current_company, current_title, company_slug, and batches — useful for mapping individuals to their YC cohort history. get_partners returns the complete list of current YC partners in a single call with no pagination, including name, slug, title, bio, photo, and url. For deeper partner data, get_person_detail takes a partner slug (e.g. 'garry-tan') and returns bio, stats, videos, articles, companies, twitter_handle, and linkedin_handle. Note that this endpoint only resolves YC partner slugs, not founder slugs.
Job Listings
search_jobs returns up to 30 open roles from workatastartup.com, filtered by role category. Accepted values include 'software-engineer', 'designer', 'recruiting', 'science', 'product', and others. Each job object includes title, type, location, role_category, salary, company_name, company_slug, company_batch, and a company description. The endpoint defaults to software engineering roles when no role is specified.
The Y Combinator API is a managed, monitored endpoint for ycombinator.com — not a raw scraper you maintain. Every endpoint is automatically health-checked on a schedule, and when ycombinator.com changes and a check fails, the API is automatically queued for repair and re-verified. It is built to keep working as the site underneath it changes.
This isn't an official ycombinator.com API — it's an independent, maintained REST wrapper over public data. Where the source has no official API (or only a limited one), Parse gives you a stable contract over a source that never promised one, and keeps it current. Need a new endpoint or field? You can revise it yourself in plain English and the agent rebuilds it against the live site in minutes — contributing the change back to the shared API is free.
Will this API break when the source site changes?+
Is this an official API from the source site?+
Can I fix or extend this API myself if I need a new endpoint or field?+
What happens if I call an endpoint that has an issue?+
- Build a YC batch tracker that surfaces all companies from a specific cohort using the
batchfilter insearch_companies - Generate a founder contact list for a given industry by combining
search_companies(filtered byindustry) withget_companyto extractfoundersand theirlinkedin_urlfields - Monitor which YC companies are actively hiring by filtering
search_companieswithis_hiring=trueandtop_company=true - Aggregate job listings for a specific role type across YC startups using
search_jobswith theroleparameter - Build a YC partner media library by calling
get_person_detailfor each partner slug to collectvideos,articles, andstats - Populate a startup database with YC metadata including
batch,team_size,tags, andwebsitefromsearch_companiesresults - Research a specific company's founding team by fetching
get_companyand inspecting thefoundersarray for bios and social handles
| Tier | Price | Credits/month | Rate limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/mo | 200 | 5 req/min |
| Hobby | $30/mo | 1,000 | 20 req/min |
| Developer | $100/mo | 5,000 | 100 req/min |
| Team | $300/mo | 20,000 | 300 req/min |
| Company | $1,000/mo | 100,000 | 500 req/min |
Each endpoint has a fixed posted price per successful call — most fall between 1 and 10 credits — shown on this API's page before you run it. Exceeding the rate limit returns a 429 response. Authenticate with the X-API-Key header.
Does Y Combinator have an official developer API?+
What does `get_company` return that `search_companies` does not?+
search_companies returns summary fields useful for directory browsing — one_liner, batch, team_size, isHiring, and tags. get_company adds the founders array (each with full_name, founder_bio, twitter_url, and linkedin_url), a full location string, and a more complete company description. You need the slug from a search result to call get_company.Can I retrieve detailed profiles for individual founders the same way I can for partners?+
search_founders returns directory-level fields like current_company, current_title, batches, and company_slug, and get_company surfaces founder bios. get_person_detail only resolves YC partner slugs and returns a not-found response for founder slugs. You can fork this API on Parse and revise it to add a dedicated founder detail endpoint if you need deeper per-founder data.How many jobs does `search_jobs` return per call, and can I page through more results?+
search_jobs returns up to 30 job listings per call. The endpoint does not currently expose pagination parameters — the response includes a count field but no nbPages or page offset. If you need broader coverage across role categories, you can call the endpoint once per role value. You can fork the API on Parse and revise it to add pagination support if your use case requires it.Does the API include YC application data, funding rounds, or valuations?+
batch, team_size, tags, status, website), founder profiles, partner content, and job listings. It does not expose application materials, funding round amounts, investor names, or valuation figures. You can fork this API on Parse and revise it to add an endpoint targeting publicly available funding data if needed.