Y Combinator’s spring 2025 batch features 70 startups focused on agentic AI
Synopsis
Y Combinator’s Spring 2025 batch featured 70 agentic AI startups, each receiving $500,000. Leadership changes include Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel stepping back, while Jon Xu and Andrew Miklas became general partners.
By ETtech
Y Combinator’s spring 2025 batch featured 70 startups focused on agentic AI. The three-month accelerator programme invests $500,000 in each selected startup.
With more than 12 years of experience, guiding 25 batches and working with over a thousand startups, Caldwell was deeply involved in YC’s application process. He is now stepping into a new role as cofounder of Standard Capital, an AI-native Series A firm.
This comes months after Michael Seibel, a longtime group partner at Y Combinator, also transitioned to a partner emeritus role after more than 12 years.
In May, visiting partners Jon Xu and Andrew Miklas were elevated to general partners at YC. In their new roles, they will work closely with founders across multiple batches at the startup accelerator programme.
Here’s a list of a few agentic AI startups joining the latest accelerator batch:
Docket – Built by engineers from Citadel, Stripe, Patreon, and Brex, it is an AI agent for web testing. Founded by Nishant Hooda and Boris Skurikhin, Docket writes tests in English, aligned with how users actually interact with the product.
PrismAI – Prism is an AI that watches session replays and tells developers what to fix. It uses semantic research and insight generation to identify issues. It was founded by Alex Liu, former engineer at Palantir and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Kirana AI – Kirana AI is building an AI system that acts as a full-time store manager. It uses an on-site GPU to monitor stores for theft, safety issues, and customer service. Over time, it will also handle tasks like ordering, pricing, and inventory management.
Sava – Sava is rebuilding sheet metal manufacturing by replacing human operators with robots. It is already reducing customer iteration cycles from 5-6 days to 1-2 days for companies like Pave Robotics and Zipline. It was founded by Jakob Knudsen, Vedic Patel, and Alessio Toniolo.
Aegis – Aegis is an all-in-one platform that helps healthcare providers recover lost revenue by automating insurance denial appeals — from intake to resolution. The San Francisco-based startup was founded in 2025 by Carnegie Mellon University alumni Krishang Todi, Aarav Bajaj, and Dhanya Shah.
Cascade Space – Founded by Jacob Portukalian, a former architect at SpaceX, Tyvak, and Astra, Cascade Space is building a communications system for lunar and deep space missions. It includes ground stations and software tools that improve connection reliability and reduce the time it takes to test and update spacecraft.
Since 2005, Y Combinator has invested in over 5,000 companies with a combined valuation of more than $800 billion.
It made headlines recently as it accused Google of harming the US startup ecosystem by making it harder for new companies to compete. In a filing in an ongoing antitrust case, YC called Google a “monopolist” that has “stunted” innovation by shutting out potential challengers.
In March, ET reported that India is also witnessing the rise of Y Combinator-type accelerators supporting AI startups founded by Indian entrepreneurs. These include Paras Chopra’s Lossfunk, a residency programme for AI builders; SaaS platform Upekkha, which pivoted to an AI fund; and Girish Mathrubootham-backed Together Fund, which also launched AI Studio to help founders navigate the AI landscape.
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In another YC-related development—Dalton Caldwell, who had been serving as managing partner at the Silicon Valley accelerator , transitioned to the role of partner emeritus. With more than 12 years of experience, guiding 25 batches and working with over a thousand startups, Caldwell was deeply involved in YC’s application process. He is now stepping into a new role as cofounder of Standard Capital, an AI-native Series A firm.
This comes months after Michael Seibel, a longtime group partner at Y Combinator, also transitioned to a partner emeritus role after more than 12 years.
In May, visiting partners Jon Xu and Andrew Miklas were elevated to general partners at YC. In their new roles, they will work closely with founders across multiple batches at the startup accelerator programme.
Here’s a list of a few agentic AI startups joining the latest accelerator batch:
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Cohesive – Cohesive is the agentic CRM for blue-collar businesses like janitorial, pressure washing, landscaping, HVAC, and pest control services. Founded in 2024 by a former founding engineer at Starlight (South Park Commons fintech) and a former ML engineer at Microsoft, it fully automates lead generation and marketing to local businesses, helping schedule services.Docket – Built by engineers from Citadel, Stripe, Patreon, and Brex, it is an AI agent for web testing. Founded by Nishant Hooda and Boris Skurikhin, Docket writes tests in English, aligned with how users actually interact with the product.
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Daxa – An AI-powered tool founded by Ananth Kashyap, former Google executive, that monitors user behaviour and feedback in real time to proactively detect issues and uncover opportunities to improve product performance and conversion.PrismAI – Prism is an AI that watches session replays and tells developers what to fix. It uses semantic research and insight generation to identify issues. It was founded by Alex Liu, former engineer at Palantir and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
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VoiceOS – Founded by Stanford and Berkeley dropout Ari Ramsan, VoiceOS builds voice AI agents for volume hiring. It uses AI to automatically interview every job applicant with personalised, lifelike conversations, filtering and shortlisting candidates for recruiters, reducing time-to-hire from weeks to days.Kirana AI – Kirana AI is building an AI system that acts as a full-time store manager. It uses an on-site GPU to monitor stores for theft, safety issues, and customer service. Over time, it will also handle tasks like ordering, pricing, and inventory management.
Sava – Sava is rebuilding sheet metal manufacturing by replacing human operators with robots. It is already reducing customer iteration cycles from 5-6 days to 1-2 days for companies like Pave Robotics and Zipline. It was founded by Jakob Knudsen, Vedic Patel, and Alessio Toniolo.
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Aegis – Aegis is an all-in-one platform that helps healthcare providers recover lost revenue by automating insurance denial appeals — from intake to resolution. The San Francisco-based startup was founded in 2025 by Carnegie Mellon University alumni Krishang Todi, Aarav Bajaj, and Dhanya Shah.
Cascade Space – Founded by Jacob Portukalian, a former architect at SpaceX, Tyvak, and Astra, Cascade Space is building a communications system for lunar and deep space missions. It includes ground stations and software tools that improve connection reliability and reduce the time it takes to test and update spacecraft.
Since 2005, Y Combinator has invested in over 5,000 companies with a combined valuation of more than $800 billion.
It made headlines recently as it accused Google of harming the US startup ecosystem by making it harder for new companies to compete. In a filing in an ongoing antitrust case, YC called Google a “monopolist” that has “stunted” innovation by shutting out potential challengers.
In March, ET reported that India is also witnessing the rise of Y Combinator-type accelerators supporting AI startups founded by Indian entrepreneurs. These include Paras Chopra’s Lossfunk, a residency programme for AI builders; SaaS platform Upekkha, which pivoted to an AI fund; and Girish Mathrubootham-backed Together Fund, which also launched AI Studio to help founders navigate the AI landscape.
