YC Fall 2025
Early reads. These 713 companies across 4 YC batches were assessed in July 2026 on limited public evidence. None is hard to displace, and 4 are defensible for now. These standings rest on less evidence than the rest of the site.
152 companies assessed. 124 of them, 81.6%, sit in the two least protected bands. Across all 10,525 companies assessed the share is 53.3%.
The picture
This batch is mostly startups piling into spaces that big companies already own. Out of 152 companies, 77 are losing its protection and only 47 sit in what got called little protection left, and even that label mostly means the field is unsettled and crowded, not that the company has an edge. The pattern repeats across categories: AI agent tooling, no-code agent builders, observability, browser agents, and health coaching apps all have multiple YC entrants chasing the same buyers that Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Meta, and well funded specialists like Aidoc, Encord, and Applied Intuition are already serving. The one thing that decides who survives here is whether a company has a real wedge that a platform giant or better funded rival cannot just ship as a feature. Companies with a narrow, hard technical or regulatory foothold, like construction QA/QC checks or NFC hardware tied to specific facilities, have a slightly better shot than the ones selling a thin AI wrapper around a workflow that OpenAI, Anthropic, or Microsoft can absorb in a product update. Most of this batch is racing incumbents that already have the users.
All 152 companies, most protected first
| Company | Standing |
|---|---|
| Absurd AI-agent studio that turns frontier video models into branded ad campaigns | Protection under test |
| Aleph Lab AI language-tutor characters living inside Minecraft, aimed at kids learning English | Protection under test |
| Aspect AI-native media storage platform for creative teams, founded by ex-Shade staff | Protection under test |
| AtlasGrid AI agent that crawls mobile apps to map UI screens with analytics overlays | Protection under test |
| Clicks AI agents that automate back-office healthcare billing and claims work | Protection under test |
| Cranston AI AI back office for CPA firms: tax prep, bookkeeping, client requests | Protection under test |
| Deeptrace AI agent that investigates production software incidents using logs, traces, and code | Protection under test |
| Fifth Door AI startup letting anyone create casual games like trivia by chatting with a bot | Protection under test |
| Flick AI filmmaking canvas that lets people direct AI-generated short films and shows | Protection under test |
| Forge Robotics YC F25 startup building AI vision for robotic metal welding and fabrication | Protection under test |
| Helonic AI tool that scans construction PDF drawings to flag clashes and code errors | Protection under test |
| Hypercubic AI startup building agents to maintain and modernize COBOL mainframe code | Protection under test |
| Karumi AI agent that joins live video calls and gives personalized 24/7 product demos | Protection under test |
| Kestrel AI Two-person YC F25 startup building AI agents that automate platform engineering tasks | Protection under test |
| Lightberry Software layer that gives humanoid robots voice, emotion, and social behavior across brands | Protection under test |
| Lunavo Two-person YC F25 startup building an AI back-office assistant for freight forwarders | Protection under test |
| MarkIt MarkIt builds AI agents to automate customs tariff classification and trade compliance | Protection under test |
| Moss Moss builds an embedded Rust/WASM retrieval engine for real-time voice and agent search | Protection under test |
| Nerviom AI tool that automates paperwork for infrastructure permitting projects | Protection under test |
| Nessie Syncs ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini chats into one shared memory layer for people and agents | Protection under test |
| SellRaze AI tool that turns one photo into cross-posted listings on eBay, Poshmark, Mercari, and more | Protection under test |
| SF Tensor Early-stage startup selling a cross-cloud GPU cost and kernel optimization layer for AI training | Protection under test |
| Specific Builds and deploys production backends from natural language, on Neon Postgres | Protection under test |
| Specific Labs Two-person YC startup selling audio and workflow data for AI training | Protection under test |
| Trelium AI agent builder for branded merchandise and promo-industry back-office operations | Protection under test |
| Unsiloed AI API that parses messy documents (PDFs, scans, forms) into clean data for LLM apps | Protection under test |
| Velvet 4-person YC lab selling multimodal training data and evals to AI labs | Protection under test |
| Zarna AI agents that automate deal sourcing and diligence work for PE associates. | Protection under test |
| AirCaps AI copilot glasses for live captioning, translation, and meeting notes in person | Losing its protection |
| Allus AI Builds a specialized vision AI model for spotting defects on factory lines | Losing its protection |
| Amera Amera automates claims normalization and processing for health insurance payers and TPAs | Losing its protection |
| Amika Two-person startup building an orchestration layer so AI coding agents write and verify code | Losing its protection |
| AnswerThis AI assistant that searches, summarizes, and cites academic papers for researchers | Losing its protection |
| Anto Biosciences Tiny startup building an AI foundation model to predict microbiome behavior | Losing its protection |
| Autonomous Technologies Group AI financial advisor startup offering 0% advisory fees, monetized via direct indexing | Losing its protection |
| Bluma Bluma turns reference videos into short-form UGC ad content via AI templates | Losing its protection |
| Bolna AI India-focused voice AI platform routing calls across models for local languages and businesses | Losing its protection |
| Boom AI AI agents that call, text, and email customers to win back lost sales and unpaid bills | Losing its protection |
| Bravi AI voice and chat assistants that answer calls and quote jobs for home services firms | Losing its protection |
| Brickanta Swedish YC startup building agentic AI that drafts tenders and checks compliance for construction planners | Losing its protection |
| Brickwise AI voice and text agent (Alice) that handles tenant maintenance calls for landlords and agents | Losing its protection |
| Caddy Caddy is a texting native AI assistant that lives in iMessage and SMS for everyday tasks | Losing its protection |
| Casey Swiss AI-native commercial insurance brokerage, YC F25, five employees | Losing its protection |
| Coasts Free CLI that isolates ports and services so parallel AI coding agents don't collide on one machine | Losing its protection |
| Codyco AI phone receptionist that answers hotel calls and books rooms into the PMS | Losing its protection |
| ComplyDo AI compliance platform helping EU enterprises meet DORA, NIS2, and CRA rules | Losing its protection |
| Cortex AI Startup collecting real-world robot and human data to train embodied AI models | Losing its protection |
| Crunched AI agent that works inside Excel and PowerPoint for finance and consulting teams | Losing its protection |
| Denki Three-person startup building AI agents that run internal SOX and AML audits atop AuditBoard, Workiva, and ERPs | Losing its protection |
| Digipals AI-native group chat app where personal agents plan hangouts, book calls, split bills | Losing its protection |
| DiligenceSquared AI voice-agent platform running expert interviews for PE due diligence | Losing its protection |
| Everest Everest sells AI agents that resolve IT tickets for outsourced MSPs | Losing its protection |
| Fastshot Fastshot turns text prompts into native iOS and Android apps using AI | Losing its protection |
| Fernstone AI-native insurance brokerage for SMBs, focused on construction and trades coverage | Losing its protection |
| Goldbridge AI tool that scans landlord spending to find tax, utility, and vendor savings | Losing its protection |
| hillclimb Supplies elite human math experts and RL training data to AI labs building reasoning models | Losing its protection |
| Hyperspell Startup building a shared memory layer that feeds context from work apps into AI agents | Losing its protection |
| Icarus Early-stage startup building solar-powered stratospheric drones for military ISR (HAPS) | Losing its protection |
| Imagine AI AI-generated LinkedIn content service for B2B executive teams | Losing its protection |
| Koyal Koyal builds agentic AI tools for music video filmmaking with consent verification | Losing its protection |
| Lakonia Builds offline AI radio co-pilot for tactical, denied-environment command and control | Losing its protection |
| Leadbay AI tool that finds SMB sales leads too small to show up on LinkedIn or web scrapes | Losing its protection |
| Lua AI TypeScript agent platform (Agent OS) letting mid-market firms build AI agents | Losing its protection |
| Lua Global Inc WhatsApp-first AI agent platform selling to mid-market firms in Africa, Middle East, South Asia via agencies | Losing its protection |
| Lunabill AI voice agents that call insurers to chase down unpaid hospital claims | Losing its protection |
| Mayflower AI plug-in that automates employer immigration screening and compliance | Losing its protection |
| Metorial Metorial hosts and manages Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers for AI agents, calling itself Vercel for MCP | Losing its protection |
| Miniswap Miniswap is a marketplace for buying and selling used tabletop miniatures like Warhammer | Losing its protection |
| Minro Minro is a 2-person YC startup flagging churn risk from PostHog data for founder-led teams | Losing its protection |
| Mixy App that lets anyone auto-blend two songs into a mashup, no DJ skills needed | Losing its protection |
| MOVEdot MOVEdot builds AI agents that help engineers analyze telemetry, simulation, and test data together | Losing its protection |
| MSPilot Startup that bills MSPs for managing their clients' AI tool rollouts | Losing its protection |
| Narrative Three-person startup building an AI video-editing assistant for sports, post, and weddings | Losing its protection |
| Nexus No-code platform letting business teams build AI agents without engineers | Losing its protection |
| Norra AI platform tracking and managing medical equipment for nursing facilities via NFC hardware | Losing its protection |
| Parametric Seed-stage startup building robots that run laundromats without staff | Losing its protection |
| Parse Parse turns any website into a callable API, built by a two-person team out of YC | Losing its protection |
| Perseus Early-stage startup building fast codebase search for AI coding agents | Losing its protection |
| Philon Philon collects real-world video data of people doing tasks to train robot AI models | Losing its protection |
| Piggy Robotics YC-backed startup building sub-$1000 humanoid robots for household chores | Losing its protection |
| Pixley AI App that turns parent prompts into short personalized AI cartoon episodes for kids | Losing its protection |
| Play Health Early-stage perimenopause app pivoting to clinical decision support infrastructure for providers | Losing its protection |
| Prox AI technical support tool for complex physical products: powersports, ag, HVAC, firearms | Losing its protection |
| Rivet Rivet is an MCP tool that lets AI coding agents generate and compare UI variants | Losing its protection |
| Rovi Health Text-first, nurse-led care navigation platform helping employers cut health spend | Losing its protection |
| Rovr AI tool that automates delivery work for AI vendors, IT consultants, and services teams | Losing its protection |
| s2.dev REST API for durable, unlimited, real-time data streams built on object storage | Losing its protection |
| Sava Early-stage startup building AI agents to automate trust paperwork and become a trustee | Losing its protection |
| Scoop YC-backed startup building AI agents to automate IND regulatory filings for biotech | Losing its protection |
| Scott AI Planning workspace for teams that build software using AI coding agents | Losing its protection |
| Semble AI Two-person YC startup turning floor plans into code-compliant trade designs | Losing its protection |
| SF Tensor Company Early-stage startup building cross-cloud GPU orchestration and a GPU-aware compiler for AI training | Losing its protection |
| Sorce Sorce is a swipe app where an AI agent fills out and submits job applications for you | Losing its protection |
| Soren Early-stage startup building AI workflow tools for regulated industries like banking and healthcare | Losing its protection |
| Structured AI AI agents that read construction drawings and run automated QA/QC checks | Losing its protection |
| Sunflower AI-powered sobriety app pairing users with an AI sponsor and AI-driven therapy chat | Losing its protection |
| Telemetron AI customer support software built for hardware and medical device companies | Losing its protection |
| Terrain AI-native sales software for contractors, restaurants, and other physical-economy businesses | Losing its protection |
| Tornyol French startup building 40g AI micro-drones that hunt and kill mosquitoes with sonar | Losing its protection |
| Uplane AI system that builds and runs ad campaigns instead of a marketing agency | Losing its protection |
| Veria Labs 3-person YC startup building AI agents that pentest code continuously via CI/CD | Losing its protection |
| Wardstone Wardstone builds satellite based interceptors for missile defense, pre revenue since 2025 | Losing its protection |
| Zalos AI agents that log into finance software to reconcile books and close month-end | Losing its protection |
| Zavo Zavo builds an AI operating system and point of sale for restaurants, UK based | Losing its protection |
| Zephyr Fusion Two-person startup building a compact fusion reactor meant to power satellites in orbit | Losing its protection |
| Antigen 3-person startup selling nightly AI pentesting plus monthly human red-team checks | Little protection left |
| Aside A 5-person startup building an AI browser that does online tasks for you | Little protection left |
| Automax.ai AI-native startup automating residential home appraisals with software and data | Little protection left |
| Bron Bron is a chat AI assistant that aggregates sportsbook and prediction-market odds for bettors. | Little protection left |
| Castari Made a secure sandbox/runtime for AI agents, then shelved it for a new startup | Little protection left |
| Clad Labs Two-person maker of Chad IDE, an entertainment layer for AI coding-agent wait times | Little protection left |
| Compyle AI coding agent that plans and asks before acting, built on Claude, Gemini, and GLM | Little protection left |
| dari.dev A two-person startup building deployment and routing tools for AI agents | Little protection left |
| Dome Built a unified API layer over Polymarket and Kalshi prediction market data | Little protection left |
| Efference Makes cheap AI-powered stereo cameras that give robots depth vision | Little protection left |
| Exonic A no-code platform layering open-source AI models onto drug discovery workflows | Little protection left |
| Expected Parrot Open-source toolkit (EDSL) for running AI-agent surveys and simulating customer responses | Little protection left |
| Freeport Markets App that turns Twitter and Reddit chatter into no-KYC trades on stocks, crypto, pre-IPO | Little protection left |
| item item is a small YC-backed AI CRM startup for early sales teams. | Little protection left |
| Jarmin Startup selling AI agents that do human jobs like analyst, paralegal, sales rep | Little protection left |
| JSX Tool Browser extension for clicking React elements and editing source code live | Little protection left |
| Kaigo Health AI tool that scans nursing home billing to catch denials and underpayments | Little protection left |
| Kalpa Labs Two-person startup building a generalist speech AI model, trained cheaply | Little protection left |
| Lapis Small AI tool that writes, launches, and tunes ad campaigns across platforms | Little protection left |
| Lemma Lemma builds monitoring tools that catch AI agents failing silently in production | Little protection left |
| Lexi Lexi builds AI legal associate software so law firms can automate casework and research. | Little protection left |
| Locus Non-custodial wallet giving AI agents controlled spending power in USDC | Little protection left |
| Logical Two-person YC startup building a screen-watching AI copilot that drafts emails and notes | Little protection left |
| LogosGuard Browser extension that strips sensitive data from prompts before they reach ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini | Little protection left |
| MadeThis AI 'co-founder' that builds sites, Stripe, and ads for small businesses | Little protection left |
| Mantle 2-person YC startup building AI agents to automate back-office CRM, email, and calendar work | Little protection left |
| Mod AI Early-stage startup building AI agents to automate accounts payable for finance teams | Little protection left |
| Multifactor Early-stage startup building identity and access controls for AI agents | Little protection left |
| Nori Nori is a small AI health coach app pulling wearable data into daily recommendations | Little protection left |
| Nucleo Nucleo makes AI software that scans CT images to flag tumors for radiologists | Little protection left |
| Null Labs Null Labs builds simulation software to train and test autonomous defense systems | Little protection left |
| Openroll Openroll is a tiny AI tool that shows companies what competitors pay employees | Little protection left |
| Patent Watch AI tool that parses patents and auto-generates infringement claim charts | Little protection left |
| Primer Primer builds AI agents that demo, onboard, and support other companies' software | Little protection left |
| Redapto Two-person startup building an AI layer that audits customer support chats for quality | Little protection left |
| Remedy AI phone agent that answers routine calls for independent community pharmacies | Little protection left |
| Sciloop Sciloop pays STEM olympiad medalists to write ultra-hard problems for frontier AI labs to test on | Little protection left |
| Selfin Pre-launch AI banking app aiming to aggregate accounts and auto-optimize money | Little protection left |
| Semiotic YC-backed studio that uses AI models to generate polished websites and design work | Little protection left |
| Sol Sol: free macOS browser where each tab runs a coding agent, terminal, or diff viewer | Little protection left |
| Sourcebot Self-hosted code search and AI agent context layer, built atop Sourcegraph's own open-source Zoekt engine | Little protection left |
| Sylvian Two-person YC startup selling AI training data and PDF form automation, no customers named yet | Little protection left |
| Tell if AI Runs fleets of AI agents that post human-passing content across social platforms for brands | Little protection left |
| Tensr Tensr is a stealth-mode startup building fully autonomous robotic factories for small-batch manufacturing | Little protection left |
| The Context Company Two-person YC F25 startup building observability tools for AI agents in production | Little protection left |
| The Hog Multi-provider web intelligence API letting AI agents and GTM teams pull live company/people data. | Little protection left |
| Thesis 3-person YC startup building an autonomous AI agent for scientific research | Little protection left |
Questions people ask
- which YC Fall 2025 startups will survive the AI era
- Very few look set up to hold ground long term based on the pressure they already face. Structured AI, Norra, Telemetron, and Sava have the lowest pressure and highest moat scores in the batch, mostly because they sit in narrower niches like construction QA or nursing facility hardware rather than general AI agent tools.
- did any YC Fall 2025 companies already fail
- Dome is effectively gone as an independent product. Polymarket absorbed it and shut down its APIs by late April 2026, and developer attention moved to pmxt and PolyRouter instead.
- why are so many YC startups building AI agent tools
- The batch is heavily weighted toward agent infrastructure, no-code agent builders, and agent observability, but Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, and the AI labs themselves are shipping the same features natively, so most of these startups are competing for space that is closing rather than opening.
- is Nucleo's cancer detection AI going to survive against Aidoc
- Nucleo faces real risk. Aidoc has over 500 million dollars in funding, more than 20 FDA clearances, and is already in about 2,000 hospitals, and it is roadmapping directly into the cancer segmentation work that Nucleo does.
- which YC F25 startups have the least competition
- Norra and Telemetron report the lowest pressure scores in the batch, at 2 and 3, largely because their focus areas, medical equipment tracking and hardware customer support, are narrower than the crowded general AI agent space most of the batch entered.
- what happened to Dome YC startup
- Dome built an API layer over Polymarket and Kalshi prediction market data, but Polymarket absorbed it and sunset its APIs by April 28, 2026, while other tools like pmxt and PolyRouter took over developer interest.
What to watch
- A platform giant (Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, or an AI lab) ships a native feature matching a startup's exact one-liner
- A startup discloses its first named enterprise customer or contract
- A better funded rival announces an acquisition or partnership in the same narrow niche (construction QA, trust automation, medical hardware tracking)
Other cohorts