Y Combinator's S25 batch: 160+ startups across various sectors

Meet Y Combinator’s latest batch of startups (S25) As YC's latest batch comes to a close after today’s demo day, we’ve just published the full market map of 160+ new startups building across 👇 1. B2B infrastructure & dev tools 2. B2B engineering, product & design tools 3. B2B productivity & ops tools 4. Healthcare 5. B2B sales & marketing 6. Consumer 7. Supply chain & logistics 8. FinTech 9. Industrial 10. B2B operations 11. Real estate & construction 12. B2B legal 13. B2B recruiting 14. Government 15. Education 16. B2B accounting & finance 17. B2B security What do we know so far about the startups? 1. 30% are building for developers 2. Notable sectors include B2B productivity, healthcare, industrials, and fintech 3. 60% mention ‘AI’ in their tagline. Discover the latest YC companies in full --> https://lnkd.in/dyU9S_9J

Meet Y Combinator’s latest batch of startups (S25) As YC's latest batch comes to a close after today’s demo day, we’ve just published the full market map of 160+ new startups building across 👇 1. B2B infrastructure & dev tools 2. B2B engineering, product & design tools 3. B2B productivity & ops tools 4. Healthcare 5. B2B sales & marketing 6. Consumer 7. Supply chain & logistics 8. FinTech 9. Industrial 10. B2B operations 11. Real estate & construction 12. B2B legal 13. B2B recruiting 14. Government 15. Education 16. B2B accounting & finance 17. B2B security What do we know so far about the startups? 1. 30% are building for developers 2. Notable sectors include B2B productivity, healthcare, industrials, and fintech 3. 60% mention ‘AI’ in their tagline. Discover the latest YC companies in full --> CLICK NEWSLETTER 👆

If you want a peak into the future, look at the YC pipeline. YC S25 with 160+ startups, 60% already AI-first. Some other trends… 1️⃣ AI infrastructure 📡 43% building tools. Infra, dev tools, APIs. 2️⃣ Vertical SaaS 🏗️ Construction, healthcare, legal ops. Fix legacy industry software. 3️⃣ SMB Fintech 💳 Payments, lending, accounting. Big unmet SMB demand. Great focus is B2B.

One of my go-to sources for market research is Y Combinator’s startup batches. They give me a real-time snapshot of how founders are thinking, what industries are shifting, and where new opportunities are emerging. Here’s what stood out to me from the Latest YC batch 👇 💻 30% are building for developers - infrastructure, engineering, product & design tools. 📈 Strong momentum in B2B productivity, healthcare, fintech, and industrials. 📉 Fewer bets placed on education, legal, recruiting, and government. 🤖 And as expected, 60%+ of startups mention “AI” in their tagline. For my research, this isn’t just trivia - it’s a lens into which problems founders believe are worth solving right now. 🔥 My takeaway: Developer tools and AI-first productivity are leading the wave, while sectors like education and legal continue to see limited innovation. 👉 If you were to bet on one category from this batch, which one would it be? Source: https://lnkd.in/gQvkHzhu #YCombinator #Startups #MarketResearch #ProductManagement #AI #DeveloperTools #B2B #Innovation #FutureOfWork #TechTrends

The data tells an interesting story about where venture capital is flowing right now. Emergent just closed a $23M Series A from Lightspeed yesterday, bringing their total funding to $30M. The twin brothers behind this "vibe coding" platform have built something that lets non-technical users create apps through prompts - but here's what caught our attention: they're not just building another no-code tool. Over 1 million people have already built 1.5 million apps on their platform since launch. The company handles the entire lifecycle - deployment, backend infrastructure, bug fixes, and support - which removes the technical barriers that typically kill these projects. This fits perfectly with CB Insights' Q2 2025 data showing AI companies commanding a $4.6M median deal size versus $3.5M for the broader market. That's a $1.1M premium investors are willing to pay for AI-enabled solutions. But the real signal here isn't just the funding premium. It's the infrastructure play. While everyone focuses on foundation models, the companies building the picks and shovels - the platforms that make AI accessible to everyday users - are quietly capturing massive market share. Lightspeed's Hemant Mohapatra said they were looking for startups that could bring the "capability bar next to zero" for coding. That's exactly what's happening across multiple sectors where AI is democratizing previously technical skills. The shift from "learn to code" to "learn to prompt" represents a fundamental change in how software gets built. We're watching the emergence of a new creator economy where the barrier to building functional applications is collapsing. #StartupStrategy #VentureCapital #AI #Innovation #TechTrends 🚀💡📊🎯💰

2015: We applied to Y Combinator and got rejected 2016: Applied again and got rejected 2017: 3rd attempt - still a NO 2018: Gave it one more chance and guess what… WE GOT IN 💃 It felt like a dream come true :) Every year, ~40,000 startups apply to YC. Only 1.5% make it. It’s brutal. Here’s a tried & tested guide for you to get accepted into YC - so you don’t have to learn it the hard way: 1. Don’t beat around the bush. Say NO to jargon. Keep your answers simple, to the point & concise. Write your application as if you’re explaining it to a 5 year old. 2. Focus on deep metrics instead of vanity metrics. YC prefers 100 users who love your product vs 10,000 who just like it. 3. Share a real ‘user transformation’ story. Show how your product is changing someone’s life. 4. Don’t fake anything. Be real & open about the risks your company has. 5. Know someone who has been to YC before? Ask for a referral. It really helps. — Send this to someone applying to YC. And if that someone is you - bookmark this and go all in. Rejections sting. But regret stings more. Keep building. You’re closer than you think. OkCredit

🚀 160+ startups pitched at Y Combinator’s S25 Demo Day last week here’s what caught my eye: 👉 After 20 years, YC is still the startup launchpad: • $800B in combined market value created • 6.5% of startups become unicorns (vs. 0.1% industry average!) • 25% of those unicorns hit $10B+ valuations • Founders are 45% more likely to raise a Series A 💡 This batch = AI everywhere. ➡️ Over 60% of startups have “AI” in their tagline. Sectors leading the charge: • 25+ B2B infrastructure & dev tools • 20+ engineering, product & design • 15+ B2B productivity solutions • 10+ healthcare • 10+ sales & marketing • 10+ consumer • 8+ fintech • 8+ supply chain & logistics • 6+ real estate & construction • 3+ B2B security • 3+ education 📈 The bigger story: YC has shifted from the early days of consumer apps to a heavy focus on B2B infrastructure & AI tooling. Why? VC economics. • Enterprise SaaS exits: 8–12x revenue multiples • Consumer companies: 3–5x Predictable revenue + higher multiples = investors’ dream. 🔥 Your turn: Which of these sectors would you bet on for the next breakout unicorn and why? Would you rather build a consumer app or a B2B AI startup in 2025? 👇 Drop your thoughts let’s debate where the next $10B company will emerge!

We got a Y Combinator reject this year. Having some good customer traction and working on a core customer issue did not help. I realised that YC is now becoming thesis-aligned in the sense that they are now funding the concepts that they believe are important to their LPs, which is what is encouraged in a venture fund. *However, I am certain with the increasing traction that we are seeing with our consumer-facing product, there is a fair chance we make the cut this year.* The venture must align to create value for its core customers, and we cannot focus on pure feature/tech overload, as innovation must be approved by the customer before it can be taken to production. A problem we noticed with our previous products was this -> A lot of tech-innovated features that were fringe to the customer experience -> led to high churn/ confusion. Nice learning. Interestingly enough, we had also submitted pure play tech that we were working on a few years back. In our case, it was a loss-less language translator (so that there was no need to learn languages for anyone), with near real-time translation capabilities (both ways when you speak and when you hear). This "tech" though heavily engineered, did not gather any paying customer beyond "interested" simply because perfect zero latency was not possible (latency < 0.1 seconds for the human ear to make the sound indistinguishable as not being real-time), and the maximum we could make was 0.53 seconds with our resources. This is when we realised a paying customer is 100x better than "mere interest" in a technological innovation. After all we were trying to establish a business that runs itself, as a business should :) We try again next time or switch to a different financing model :) Shubham Bhardwaj

Lovable just made Y Combinator obsolete for 99% of founders. Because it gives founders what YC can’t: Validation at scale. YC gives you $500K for 7% equity. It only gives the funds for one bet. Lovable lets you test 10 for less than 0.1% of the cost. Without equity dilution or relocation. The old playbook: → Apply to YC → Wait for acceptance → Move to SF → Give up 7% → Hope your idea works The new playbook is simpler: → Describe your idea to Lovable → Ship MVP by Friday → Get real user feedback → Kill it or scale it → Repeat 10x faster YC's real value was never the money. It was the validation framework. The mentor network. And the peer pressure to ship. But here's what changed. Validation used to require: → 3 developers → 6 months → $200K burn Now it requires: → 1 founder → 1 weekend → $25 Lovable subscription I'm watching solo founders validate faster than entire YC batches. And hitting product-market fit without any outside capital. Their total investment is usually a few hundred dollars in tools. And they keep 100% of their equity. The acceleration isn't coming from capital anymore. It's coming from: → AI that writes production code → Deployment in one click → Payment integration in minutes → User feedback loops in hours YC still makes sense for the 1% building deep tech or hardware. But for the 99% building SaaS, marketplaces, or B2B tools. The math just doesn't work anymore. Why give up 7% to maybe find product-market fit in 3 months? The future of acceleration isn't batches and demo days. It's continuous validation at the speed of thought. Pick your accelerator wisely.