How to Browse Y Combinator Companies: Complete Directory Guide

Guide Startups is an educational directory of Y Combinator alumni companies, founders, and related guides. If you want to browse Y Combinator companies by cohort, sector, geography, or name, you do not need the official YC site alone—this directory adds structured paths for research and comparison.

At a glance, the directory includes:

• ~5,500+ companies with descriptions, batches, tags, and links
• 45+ batches (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall cohorts)
• 330+ industry tags (SaaS, fintech, AI, healthcare, and more)
• 78 countries with city breakdowns where data exists
• 10,000+ founder profiles linked to companies

Everything under Directory → Y Combinator in the site header points to the main browse surfaces. This guide walks through each route and when to use it. For a single company from an ai##### search, start with how to look up a YC company by ID.

The companies index is the default starting point. You get a paginated grid of YC alumni with sort options (name, batch, year founded, team size) and a search box.

Search tips:

• Company name — partial matches work (e.g. "stripe").
• Keywords from a tagline — search words from the product description.
• Industry tags — e.g. "fintech" or "generative ai" if they appear in tags or descriptions.
• Numeric ID — enter 29973 or ai29973 to jump to that company’s profile (see the ID lookup guide).

Each company card links to a detail page: /companies/{name-slug}-{company_id}. From there you can open the batch, industries, year founded, and founders. Official listings also live on ycombinator.com/companies [1]; use both when you need YC’s canonical view and Launch posts.

YC organizes companies into batches—cohorts such as Winter 2024 (W24) or Summer 2021 (S21). On Guide Startups:

1. Open /batches to see every batch and company count.
2. Click a batch to open /batches/{slug} (e.g. /batches/w24).
3. Browse companies in that cohort with pagination for large batches.

Batch browse is best when you care about who went through the same program window, Demo Day peers, or cohort trends. Batch codes are not the same as ai##### company IDs—see YC batches explained and batch schedule for naming and timing.

Some research questions are about when a company was founded, not which YC batch it joined. Guide Startups exposes year pages:

/year/{year} — e.g. /year/2024, /year/2020

There is no single “all years” index in the nav; you can reach a year from a company profile (Founded link) or by typing the URL directly. Year pages list companies where year_founded matches, with pagination. Use year browse for market maps (“who started in 2024?”); use batch browse for accelerator cohort analysis.

Companies are tagged with one or more industry labels (SaaS, fintech, B2B, generative AI, healthcare, etc.). To explore by vertical:

1. Go to /industries — tags are sorted by company count.
2. Open a tag, e.g. /industries/fintech or /industries/artificial-intelligence.
3. Scan cards and open profiles for competitors or benchmarks.

Tags are directory classifications, not always identical to how a company describes itself on YC. For definitions of vertical vs. horizontal markets, read what are industry verticals; for sector strategy, see industry spotlights and best industries for startups.

The locations hub groups companies by country, with links to major cities where available:

• /locations/{country-slug} — country-level company lists
• /locations/{country}/{city} — city-level lists (e.g. San Francisco, London)

Use location browse for regional ecosystem research, hiring geography, or investor theses tied to a market. Company pages also show location text and link to year and batch when relevant. Location data depends on what each company reports; some profiles may omit city or country.

The founders directory lists people associated with YC companies—roughly 10,000+ names with links to their startups. Each founder page (/founders/{name-slug}) shows companies they are tied to in our data.

Use founder browse when search traffic is a person’s name (common in Search Console) rather than a company ID. Flow:

1. Search or scroll the founders index (paginated).
2. Open the founder profile.
3. Click through to the company page for batch, industry, and description.

For step-by-step founder lookup (LinkedIn, company-first flow), see how to find YC founders. For ID-style company codes and tagline searches, prefer /companies search or the lookup-by-ID guide.

Beyond raw company lists, Guide Startups adds context layers:

• Glossary — terms such as batch, Demo Day, and accelerator jargon (browse A–Z).
• Blog — guides on applying to YC, funding, verticals, and directory usage.
• Topic hubs — e.g. accelerator batches, industry spotlights, startup funding group related articles.
• About — site purpose and how the directory is maintained.

If you are new to YC, read startup ecosystem explained alongside this browse map.

Combine paths: open a batch, note tags on companies, then jump to an industry page for that vertical across batches.

To browse Y Combinator companies on Guide Startups, use the header Directory menu: Companies, Batches, Industries, Locations, and Founders. Add /year/{year} when founding year matters, and search when you have a name, tagline, or ai##### ID.

Bookmark this map for research workflows; for single-company resolution and URL formats, keep how to look up a YC company by ID handy. Confirm critical facts on YC’s official directory [1] when it matters for fundraising or press.