Portico

Agents that work state legacy systems through their own screens, priced per case cleared.

Portico runs computer-use agents that log into the mainframe terminals, county portals and 1990s case management systems that state agencies still process benefits, permits and licences in, and complete the transaction the way a clerk would.

AI agent as a service
Government and public sector
$1-10B market
Collapses a cost 10x
US first

3/5

venture judge

similar startups, last 2 years (0 all-time)

98%

of 4 nearest real companies still alive

sector

35 public grants in this sector, none matching the idea's terms

Scorecard

One score that balances how trendy the idea is, the demand for it and its potential for 100x, with competition measured relative to every other idea in the catalog. Recent startup trends first, government priorities second.

Idea Score, 0-100 · raw 41.6 x 1.64

Open

competition: more crowded than 6% of ideas · headwind x0.97

+0.0

government priorities, secondary (0 matching grants)

Trend

Is the wave forming now? 2025-26 entrants vs 2023-24, rounds since 2025, the sector's live-batch direction, the 2026 trend analyst.

Entrants 2025-26 vs 2023-24 (similar companies)23
Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector8
Sector direction (live batch)100
2026 trend analyst50

Demand

Does anyone want it? YC's current RFS, companies already paid for something similar, the operator judge, founders' yes-rate in decks, readers who would run the test.

YC asks for it (current RFS: idea / sector)30
Someone already pays (similar companies, recent / all-time)0
Operator judge: real pain100

100x potential

Can it return a fund? The venture judge (double weight), market-size and moat axes, neighbours still alive, the technologist judge.

Venture judge50
Market size axis33
Moat axis20
Technologist judge50

Score = 100 x cbrt(Trend x Demand x 100x) x (1 - 0.5 x crowding) + government bonus (max 5), calibrated so the 95th-percentile idea scores 90 (order never changes). A geometric mean: a weak pillar cannot be papered over. Percentiles are among the 272 ideas in the catalog; the terms matched were state, legacy, computer-use, log, mainframe, terminals, county.

The idea in full

What: Portico runs computer-use agents that log into the mainframe terminals, county portals and 1990s case management systems that state agencies still process benefits, permits and licences in, and complete the transaction the way a clerk would. Agencies buy cleared cases, not software: eligibility redeterminations processed, permit files advanced, backlog worked down. A drift detector re-derives the operating recipe whenever a screen changes, so the integration maintains itself instead of breaking on the next vendor patch.
Why now: YC's Fall 2026 Request for Startups names Self-Maintaining APIs, and Rindler in S26 is building the translation layer between AI agents and the web while CoArena is building the largest crowdsourced computer-use benchmark; NSF also funded an I-Corps project on evaluating foundation model outputs at ~$50k, so the measurement side of reliability is being built in public.
Wedge: first customer and entry point: One county unemployment or SNAP redetermination queue with a published backlog number; work it on a per-case fee under an existing small purchase threshold, no new procurement vehicle needed.
Path to 100x: State and local case processing labor for these queues is a $1-10B addressable market where a cleared case costs $40 to $80 in staff time, and Portico prices at a fraction of that on software margins because there is no new system to install. The 100x requires the recipe library across the handful of vendor systems that most states share to become reusable, so the fiftieth agency onboards in days and the cost per case keeps falling as volume grows.
Ceiling: If each state's configuration turns out to be genuinely bespoke, delivery cost tracks headcount and the business becomes a modernisation contractor with better tools.
Closest real companies, as the generator saw them: Rindler translates between agents and the web as infrastructure for developers, and Decawork sells an agent control plane to IT teams; Portico sells the completed government transaction and carries the reliability risk. Propolis attempted hands-off QA via browser agents and is now inactive, which is the failure mode Portico must avoid by measuring per-case correctness rather than screen actions.
Main risk: A single wrong benefits determination produces a news story and a statewide suspension, and no agency reinstates the vendor.

Five judges

Each judge scores every idea in the catalog with a named rubric; the venture judge decides whether a card is shown at all (4-5 is venture-grade).

Venture investor
3/5
Software margins on $40-80 cleared cases scale well, but bespoke state configurations would turn it into a modernisation contractor.
Bootstrapper
5/5
Per-case fees under a county small purchase threshold, no new procurement vehicle, software margins against $40-80 of clerk time.
Operator
5/5
A published county backlog priced at $40 to $80 per case, bought under a small purchase threshold with no new system installed.
Technologist
3/5
The drift detector that re-derives recipes is the only real engineering, and generic computer-use models are commoditising underneath it.
Risk
2/5
Screen-scraping state mainframes with no licence and no moat, where one wrong SNAP determination produces a statewide suspension and no reinstatement.
trends
3/5
Computer-use agents becoming reliable is a genuine current shift and per-case pricing fits it, but the Self-Maintaining APIs RFS tie is a stretch for screen scraping.

Similar startups in the directory

Companies whose pitch matches most of the idea's terms (state, legacy, computer-use, log, mainframe, terminals, county): 0 all-time, 0 from the last two years. Same matching as Idea Check.

Nothing in the directory matches this idea's terms: an open space, or a wording nobody uses yet.

Run this as an Idea Check →

The generator's reference companies

Real companies the model named as closest when it wrote the card, with their fate. A check mark is a company the radar could verify in its directory.

Public money in this direction

US federal grants, SBIR/STTR awards and open opportunities from the radar's public-money feed, matched to the idea's terms; the sector totals give the context.

grants and programs matching the idea

startup-relevant grants in Agent infrastructure

$15M

awarded in the sector, tracked

opportunities open now in the sector

All public money by sector →

Market signal

What the radar sees in Agent infrastructure: new companies by cohort year, the forming YC batch, and outcomes since the February snapshot.

Agent infrastructure · 27 → 63 → 106 → 148 → 126 new companies 2022 → 2026 · 95% aliveYC S26: 39 in this cluster, 16% of the batch (was 17% in X26) (F26 is still forming: 21 listed)Since February, of 244 YC companies here: 7 acquired, 2 shut down, 102 rewrote their pitch

Agent infrastructure: companies, trend and grants →

Design attributes

The card is one cell of a designed set: every axis below was chosen before the text was written, and the text had to realize it.

Buyer: Government and public sector
Business model: AI agent as a service
Path to 100x: Collapses a cost 10x
Market size: $1-10B market
Capital intensity: Capital-light (software margins)
Speed to revenue: Revenue in 1-3 years
Technical depth: Deep tech: ML, hardware, bio
Go-to-market: Founder-led sales
Moat: No moat yet
Geography: US first
Regulation: Some regulation
Vibe: Hot space