Cluster trends across YC batches
Share of each cluster among classified YC companies, W21 to S26. Bars are batch shares; Δ compares the last two batches with the two before them. Batches with fewer than 20 classified companies are omitted.
Right column: total classified companies per cluster in this range. Hover a bar for exact counts. Data: YC public directory, classified into a fixed taxonomy.
Words being born
Two-word phrases from company one-liners that barely existed before and several companies now use. Vocabulary moves before cluster shares do - this is the earliest trend signal the directory can give.
Theme mix by accelerator
Share of each cluster inside each program's 2024+ intake. Where a theme is YC-only versus already spread across every program tells you how far the wave has diffused.
| Cluster | YC | Techstars | 500 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vertical AI agents | 29.6% | 7.8% | 12.8% |
| Agent infrastructure | 13.8% | 1.5% | 1.6% |
| Healthcare and bio | 4.0% | 15.1% | 6.4% |
| Fintech | 5.2% | 10.5% | 11.2% |
| Robotics and physical world | 7.0% | 7.7% | 4.8% |
| Consumer | 5.1% | 7.6% | 13.8% |
| Other | 0.2% | 17.1% | 4.8% |
| B2B SaaS | 5.5% | 6.5% | 11.2% |
| Developer tools | 8.3% | 1.6% | 4.8% |
| Climate and energy | 1.2% | 8.9% | 5.3% |
Programs with fewer than 30 classified 2024+ companies are excluded - their shares would be noise.