Cluster trends across YC batches

Share of each cluster among classified YC companies, S08 to F26. Bars are batch shares; Δ compares the last two batches with the two before them. Batches with fewer than 20 classified companies are omitted.

Since 2024Since 2021Since 2015All time
Vertical AI agents

22.0% ▼ -8.4 pp

915
Consumer

2.8% ▼ -0.7 pp

825
B2B SaaS

4.6% • -0.4 pp

792
Fintech

6.4% ▼ -1.3 pp

639
Developer tools

5.5% ▼ -0.6 pp

519
Healthcare and bio

0.9% • -0.4 pp

478
433
Agent infrastructure

16.5% • +0.1 pp

364
327
Data for AI

7.3% ▲ +2.0 pp

199
Security and compliance

3.7% • +0.3 pp

192
Horizontal AI assistants

4.6% ▲ +1.2 pp

158
AI infra and compute

5.5% ▲ +2.2 pp

157
Climate and energy

0.9% • -0.1 pp

124
Defense and space

1.8% ▼ -1.0 pp

87
Other

0.9% • +0.2 pp

44
S08
S10
W12
S13
W15
S16
W18
S19
W21
S22
W24
W25
F25
S26

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.

ClusterYCTechstarsPnPantlerspeedrun500efalchemistspcSOSVskydeckseedcampaigrant
Vertical AI agents29.1%8.4%10.3%20.9%26.2%12.4%30.5%25.4%14.6%1.2%16.9%28.8%30.6%
Healthcare and bio3.9%15.4%13.7%6.7%3.1%6.2%10.4%9.3%7.3%20.7%8.5%11.5%2.8%
Robotics and physical world7.5%8.0%14.2%5.8%2.8%4.7%7.8%5.9%10.4%24.4%10.2%3.8%8.3%
Agent infrastructure13.9%1.5%3.7%5.4%9.5%1.6%3.9%5.1%12.5%-10.2%9.6%19.4%
Consumer5.0%7.6%3.5%10.5%30.8%14.0%3.9%-12.5%3.7%1.7%1.9%2.8%
B2B SaaS5.6%6.3%8.9%13.9%1.8%11.4%3.9%11.0%7.3%-8.5%5.8%8.3%
Fintech5.3%10.2%8.6%9.1%4.0%10.9%7.1%1.7%2.1%-5.1%3.8%-
Climate and energy1.2%9.0%13.4%4.4%0.3%5.7%2.6%5.1%2.1%29.3%5.1%3.8%-
Developer tools8.1%1.7%1.2%3.2%4.0%5.2%6.5%13.6%4.2%1.2%1.7%3.8%2.8%
Other0.2%16.4%2.8%1.2%-4.7%1.9%1.7%-9.8%6.8%1.9%2.8%

Programs with fewer than 30 classified 2024+ companies are excluded - their shares would be noise.