40 Y Combinator companies with a founder who worked at NASA before.
Updated weekly, last on November 9, 2026. Roster from Y Combinator's public directory.
| Company | Batch | Team | 6 mo | 12 mo | Open roles | Total raised | Last round |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Extensible, Integrated Technology that Simplifies Health Systems | S16 | 309 | −10% | −19% | 14 | $154M | Undisclosed round$3.8M, Jun 2026 |
We’re building a platform to empower cities to plan the best possible… | W15Acquired | 187 | +4% | +8% | 0 | $27M | Grant$15M, Jul 2020 |
Open Finance API platform for Latam. | W20 | 125 | +10% | +12% | YC | $70M | Undisclosed round$15M, Apr 2025 |
Raptor Maps builds software to manage the solar PV lifecycle. | S16 | 96 | −14% | −14% | 1 | $62.2M | Series C$35M, Dec 2024 |
Stratospheric birds for defense | F25 | 73 | +46% | +143% | 5 | $650K | YC investment$500K, Dec 2025 |
AI hiring platform powered by expert recruiters | W25 | 62 | +13% | +130% | 0 | $2.8M | Seed$2.3M, May 2026 |
AI CAD Software for Civil Engineering | S21 | 40 | +11% | +21% | 8 | $16.8M | Seed$14.4M, Jul 2024 |
We automate creator marketing for the world's largest brands | S25 | 33 | +38% | +57% | YC | $500K | YC investment$500K, Sep 2025 |
Simple, fun, and fast electric vehicles. | S12Acquired | 32 | −3% | 0 | $73M | Series B$60M, Dec 2018 | |
The AI communication layer for healthcare | W24 | 31 | +48% | +48% | 1 | $10.5M | Seed$10M, Sep 2026 |
Engineering the future of chemistry for natural resource extraction | S22 | 27 | −4% | 0 | |||
Digital program for tinnitus | W22 | 24 | +4% | +20% | 0 | $4M | Seed$3.3M, Jul 2022 |
Open-Core Pricing and Billing Engine | S22Inactive | 22 | 0% | 0% | 0 | SeedOct 2022 | |
Autonomous construction on Earth and beyond | S26 | 15 | +15% | +50% | 2 | $4.5M | YC investment$500K, Aug 2026 |
America's Golden Dome for Drones | S25 | 11 | +38% | YC | $6.5M | Seed$6M, Sep 2025 | |
AI copilot for construction estimators | F24 | 10 | +67% | +67% | YC | $500K | YC investment$500K, Dec 2024 |
Tracking methane emissions with satellites | S23 | 10 | 0% | −17% | 0 | $4.6M | Seed$4M, Mar 2024 |
Continuous offensive security for the enterprise. | F25 | 7 | YC | $500K | YC investment$500K, Dec 2025 | ||
The Cursor for Chip Design - Delivering Silicon-Ready Chip Designs… | S25 | 7 | 0 | $500K | YC investment$500K, Sep 2025 | ||
AI research lab automating all of investing | W24 | 7 | YC | ||||
Targeting the Tumor Ecosystem to address cancer drug resistance. | W22 | 6 | 0% | 0% | 0 | $2.3M | Seed$1.8M, Oct 2024 |
Helping 100+ brands bring all quality and compliance operations… | W20Acquired | 6 | 0% | −14% | 0 | $7.1M | Seed$1.5M, Jul 2023 |
Data Versioning, Data Pipelines, and Data Lineage | W15Acquired | 6 | +20% | 0 | $28.1M | Series B$16M, Aug 2020 | |
Submarine drones for defense | X26 | 5 | 0 | $500K | YC investment$500K, Jun 2026 | ||
Autonomous Runtime Security | X26 | 5 | 0 | Pre-seed (before YC)Dec 2025 | |||
AI spacecraft operators that lives onboard the vehicle | F26 | 4 | YC | ||||
Gigascale Nanomanufacturing | X25 | 4 | 0 | SeedMay 2025 | |||
Generative AI Photographer for E-Commerce | W23Acquired | 4 | 0 | $3.3M | Seed$2.2M, May 2023 | ||
The AI equipment manager for post-acute care | F25 | 3 | 0 | $500K | YC investment$500K, Dec 2025 | ||
Navigate any set of data - no matter how large - in minutes. | W25 | 3 | −40% | 0 | $500K | YC investment$500K, Jan 2025 | |
AI Agents for Audit | W25 | 3 | 0 | $500K | YC investment$500K, Mar 2025 | ||
Web, Desktop, and Mobile apps with one codebase in Rust | S23Acquired | 3 | 0 | $500K | YC investment$500K, Jun 2023 | ||
We make law firms AI-native. | S26 | 2 | 0 | ||||
The notebook that thinks with you. | S25Acquired | 2 | −89% | −92% | 0 | $1.4M | YC investment$500K, Jul 2025 |
API sandboxes, built for AI agents | S26 | 1 | 0 | $500K | YC investment$500K, Dec 2025 | ||
AI Agents for Pharmacies | F25Acquired | 1 | 0 | $500K | YC investment$500K, Sep 2025 | ||
AI for the physical world | W25 | 1 | 0 | $500K | YC investment$500K, Mar 2025 | ||
Delightful team-building events for remote companies | W20Inactive | 1 | 0 | $150K | YC investment$150K, Mar 2020 | ||
Replaces paper patient lists for doctors. | S14Acquired | 1 | 0 | $500K | Undisclosed round$500K, Jan 2017 | ||
Embed PDFs, PowerPoints, and other documents into web and mobile apps | W10Acquired | 1 | 0 | SeedApr 2010 |
Every launched company in YC's public directory, with its batch, status, industry and location. New companies show up the week YC lists them.
Each company is matched to Crustdata by its website. Crustdata adds team size and its change over 6 and 12 months, open roles from job postings, reported funding, and founders' past employers.
Hiring the most counts distinct roles posted in the last 60 days. Growth needs 10+ people today, shrinking 20+ a year ago, so tiny teams do not top the lists. Rebuilt every week.
The numbers on this page come from three Crustdata API calls. Crustdata tags 5,000+ companies with Y Combinator as an investor; swap the filter for any investor, industry or headcount range and track your own list, with founders' work emails one call away.
# 1. every company with Y Combinator as an investor curl https://api.crustdata.com/company/search \ -H "authorization: Bearer $CRUSTDATA_API_KEY" \ -H "x-api-version: 2025-11-01" \ -d '{ "filters": { "field": "funding.investors", "type": "in", "value": ["Y Combinator"] }, "fields": ["basic_info.name", "headcount.total", "headcount.growth_percent", "funding.total_investment_usd"], "limit": 100 }' # 2. open listings per company, last 60 days (limit 0 = counts only) curl https://api.crustdata.com/job/search \ -H "authorization: Bearer $CRUSTDATA_API_KEY" \ -H "x-api-version: 2025-11-01" \ -d '{ "filters": { "op": "and", "conditions": [ { "field": "company.basic_info.company_id", "type": "in", "value": [...] }, { "field": "metadata.date_added", "type": "=>", "value": "2026-08-24" } ]}, "limit": 0, "aggregations": [{ "type": "group_by", "field": "company.basic_info.company_id", "agg": "count" }] }' # 3. the same company filter as a weekly watch: POST /watch/company/search
40 Y Combinator companies have a founder who worked at NASA; 28 are active.
6 companies posted roles in the last 60 days, led by Athelas (14 roles), Mach9 (8 roles) and Icarus (5 roles). 11 mark themselves as hiring on YC's directory.
By team growth over 6 months (10+ people): Fresco (+67%), Clarion (+48%) and Icarus (+46%).
Largest latest rounds in the last 12 months, after their YC batch: Clarion ($10M), Athelas ($3.8M) and Contrario ($2.3M).