See which industries dominate YC and how they evolve.

About the YC industry table

This table groups 6,177 Y Combinator companies into 9 industries using the industry field in the YC companies dataset. Rows are sorted by company count, so the largest sector comes first (currently B2B, with 3,178 companies).

Companies that have no industry recorded are grouped under Unknown rather than dropped, so the counts add up to the full dataset.

How to read each column

• Industry: the sector label recorded for the company in the YC directory.
• Companies: how many companies in the dataset carry that industry label.
• Active rate: the share of those companies whose status is Active, rounded to the nearest whole percent. A lower rate means more companies in that sector are marked as acquired, public, or inactive.
• Top batches: up to three YC batches that contributed the most companies to that industry, most common first.

What you can use it for

• Market research: see which sectors YC has backed most often before you pick a space to build in.
• Competitor and peer lists: once you know the industry, open the YC companies directory and filter by it to see who is already in the field.
• Investor and partner outreach: use the top batches to find the cohorts that produced the most companies in a sector.
• Sales prospecting: compare sector sizes to decide which segment of YC startups is worth a campaign.

Related tools and pages

• YC Companies Directory: search and filter every company, then export the list.
• YC Batches: company counts, active rates, and top industries per batch.
• YC Locations: the same breakdown by country and city.
• DebuggAI AI Test Suites: if you are building in one of these sectors, see how DebuggAI generates and maintains browser tests for your app.