Y Combinator Startups in Boston 2025

Ginkgo Bioworks is the organism company. We design custom organisms for customers across multiple markets. We build our foundries to scale the process of organism engineering using software and hardware automation. Organism engineers at Ginkgo learn from nature to develop new organisms that replace technology with biology.

Expected Parrot helps companies simulate their customers with AI agents to explore pricing, product, marketing, communications and other scenarios at scale. Our open-source library and no-code web app let you design custom agent personas and conduct interviews and surveys with them using LLMs of your choice to generate results and reports. Everything is cached and reproducible, and you can send the same surveys to human respondents to validate results in the same interface.

Boost Robotics is building autonomous mobile manipulation robots to remotely perform manual tasks in data centers. The surge in AI applications is pushing data centers to scale faster than they can manage, leading to suboptimal operations and staffing shortages amid rising power and compute demands. We save data centers millions in insurance premiums and SLA violations by increasing the frequency of inspection and maintenance while reducing the time it takes to triage and address failures.

Manufacturing pharmaceutical drugs faster and in the USA

Blueshoe is an AI platform for legal research and reasoning designed to capture the structure of legal thought and allow users to work directly within the logic of caselaw. By combining advanced AI with curated legal and proprietary data pipelines, the system allows users build and test arguments with unprecedented clarity.

Delineate is building AI agents to design better clinical trials faster. This is a $10B dollar market, where saving even 1 day along the process is equal to $1-5M in revenue potential. We process existing clinical trial research into specialized datasets saving scientists months of effort. Delineate is working with two of the largest pharmaceutical companies. With one of our customers, we are helping them get to the next phase of trials faster by creating the largest dataset on a drug class ever constructed.

HYBRD helps you get stronger and faster. It pulls in all your training data, from every wearable and workout tracking app you use, and uses it to personalize training plans specifically to you and your goals Existing products tend to focus on only one type of exercise (either cardio or strength), leaving hybrid athletes juggling disconnected tools. As hybrid athletes themselves the founders found this frustrating and set out to build the unified approach they needed for their training. Three of HYBRD’s founders previously worked at WHOOP, each leading teams across product, growth and analytics. Ruiters, the CTO, was a senior tech lead at AWS. In parallel, Mats was a member of the US national rowing team and Ben, Shoe and Ruiters have all completed Ironman 70.3s. The team's VP of tech/founding engineer Michael rowed at Cornell and is ex-WHOOP as well.

Splendor's AI agent helps providers, EHRs, and billing companies automate benefits checks, prior auth, and more.

SynsoryBio is creating next generation, protein therapeutics that sense where they are in the body and only activate at diseased tissue. This technology platform has the potential to expand the therapeutic window of highly potent drugs and apply to many diseases such as cancer and autoimmune disorders.

Lumona is an AI-enabled search engine featuring insights from social media. When you’re looking to buy a new phone, instead of adding reddit to the end of your search and opening tabs of threads that take forever to get through, you can search on Lumona to get all of that processed for you on one page so you can make the best decision while saving time.

At Maven Bio, we’re transforming BioPharma knowledge work by pairing domain-specific AI with curated industry data—letting consultants, investors, and corporate teams move from question to decision with less manual work. Our integrated BioPharma-specific platform features four flagship modules: • Maven Workflows: Monitor Maven's domain-specific AI through structured research tasks—step by step—and finalize results with confidence. • Maven Atlas: Access hundreds of pre-built indication landscapes, or generate custom ones on demand for in-depth insights. • Maven Compass: Build precise lists of companies, drugs, trials, or documents with advanced filters—move faster with AI-driven filter suggestions. • Maven Assistant: Get instant answers to your BioPharma questions, complete with direct links to primary sources. Stop burning hours on manual data hunts. Maven Bio’s continuously updated database and collaborative AI features empower you to focus on strategic decisions. We offer usage-based pricing and usage-restricted trials, plus custom solutions for unique data sources or specialized workflows. Trusted by life science consultants, BD teams, and investors worldwide, Maven Bio delivers faster, deeper insights. Book a call to learn how our purpose-built AI can transform your research and accelerate your success.

## What is Yuma AI? Yuma is automating customer support by providing an AI Support Agent orchestration platform. Yuma provides autonomous AI agents dedicated to customer service and e-commerce. We integrate directly with help desk software (Zendesk, Kustomer, Gorgias, etc.) and focus on helping large Shopify brands deal with their high volume of support requests. Top merchants using Yuma can automate up to 80% of their support tickets fully autonomously. ## Why do Shopify merchants need Yuma? There are thousands of large Shopify merchants around the world generating $10M+ a year. Most of them have taken over some niches and are great at what they do: selling their products. But they all have one thing in common: they all hate customer support. It's a burden for them and a huge source of cost, as they receive hundreds of requests per day. Some of them have dozens of support agents on staff, usually offshore, and the overall quality is still often pretty poor while staff turnover remains high. Those merchants have been promised automation for years but have always been disappointed by the outcome. As customers, we have all had to live through a terrible support automation experience before, so this is no secret, and everyone knows that the current state of the technology is quite bad. ## Yuma is solving this in a few ways: Yuma isn't just another RAG chatbot. Our platform provides autonomous AI agents dedicated to support and ecommerce. These agents are powered by knowledge, follow processes, and are managed by our in-house AI orchestration technology. This ensures safety, control, and quality at every step. We believe that to truly automate customer support, we must develop a platform that mimics the actions of a human support agent. That's exactly what we've been doing. Currently, our top merchants are automating 60% of their support tickets through Yuma. Yuma can fetch information from external services and take actions in other apps as needed to resolve each ticket. We are laser-focused on building the best AI support agent platform and aim to achieve 80% true automation in the next few months. ## Fun Fact Yuma got started by accident. This is my third YC startup after Socialcam (W12) and Triplebyte (S15). I released Yuma as a prototype for fun in mid-December 2022 and was overwhelmed with demo requests. That's when I knew I was onto something and had to turn this into a real company, once again.

Pando is an AI-driven synthetic biology company revolutionizing enzyme engineering for the pharmaceutical industry. Our ultra-high-throughput screening platform screens 1000-fold more enzymes 75% faster and 80% cheaper than traditional methods. This empowers our generative AI to efficiently optimize enzymes across multiple properties, delivering high-performing, tailored enzymes that reduce costs and enhance efficiency.

The world’s first and only intent platform based entirely at the contact level. Know exactly which contacts are in-market on and off your site.

Odigos leverages eBPF technology to create an open-source solution that can automatically generate distributed traces for any application without any engineering work. Developers are struggling with extracting and delivering high-quality monitoring data. Currently, building a pipeline is a manual process that takes months to implement, is an error-prone process that requires tons of code changes across multiple R&D teams, and demands collaboration.

Propexo lets engineers build, test, and launch CRE software integrations in days, not months. We modernize the developer experience for our customers, providing clear documentation and robust infrastructure to support the needs of property owners, property managers, & proptechs.

Your immune system is your body’s best weapon and defense against cancer. It is only when it is overcome that cancer develops into full blown disease. Dendritic cells sit at the helm of the immune system, directing and dictating immune responses. Data has shown dendritic cells are often dysfunctional in cancer patients, and that this dysfunction is a bottleneck for other therapies. Guardian Bio’s approach is focused on creating a dendritic cell-based product which drives anti-tumor activity through activating the killers of the immune system AND training them against multiple cancer targets. We take stem cells from cancer patients, turn them into specific therapeutic dendritic cells specially trained against that patient’s tumor, and re-introduce them back into the body. Our therapeutic dendritic cells revitalize the killers of the immune system and give them the kickstart they need to fight - and win - against cancer.

FlyCode helps subscription merchants maximize revenue. We reduce involuntary churn by managing payment failures intelligently. We’re Jake, Etai, and Tzachi and we’re building FlyCode. TL;DR: If you sell SaaS or B2C subscriptions, we’re here to help you recover lost revenue due to failed payments and involuntary churn. ‘Involuntary’ or ‘Passive’ churn is a hidden Revenue Killer 💳 for Subscription Businesses ❌ THE PROBLEM: Recovering Failed Payments is Complex Involuntary churn refers to the loss of subscribers due to payment failures, not due to them actively canceling. While it is both possible and a worthwhile strategy to attempt to win back a customer during the cancellation process — involuntary churn is not intentional and in most cases, your customers aren’t even aware that their payment failed. 💰 Bottom line? Effective payment optimization does reduce involuntary churn and will increase ARR by as much as 5-10% FLYCODE SOLUTION 💡 FlyCode leverages ML and AI to provide Payment Optimization and smart payment retries to maximize subscription revenue and reduce churn. We apply a unique model tailored to each Merchant and their customers to ensure optimal results. ⚡️Automatically recover failed subscription payments and reduce passive churn ⚡️Use ML & AI based payment optimization to find the best time to charge your customers ⚡️ Improve customer experience by coordinating payment retries with customer emails/SMS 🛠️ We support OOTB + Custom Integrations for Merchants and White-Label for Platforms

NuMind is a tool for data scientists, data analysts, but also software engineers to create custom NLP models. For example, a recruiting company uses NuMind to find which job offers best match a given resume. Etienne (CEO) was head of Machine Learning at Wolfram Research, and Samuel (CTO) co-founded Make.org (8M users). NuMind originated from our own frustration when developing NLP models. Leveraging large language models similar to GPT-3, NuMind allows to complete NLP projects at least 10x faster than before. We launched a private beta August 2 and had 9 paying customers one month later.

Argument combines zero-knowledge cryptography, formal verification and distributed consensus technologies to build systems for unbreakable, scalable, private, decentralized software.

We are building high-precision implantable neuromodulation devices that can sense and stimulate neural activity in the brain with the goal of transforming the efficacy and adoption of deep brain stimulation (DBS), an existing FDA-approved therapy used to treat Parkinson’s, essential tremor and epilepsy.

Brown Foods is a Stanford, Rice University and IIT Delhi alumni venture building the next-generation of food products. They are creating UnReal Milk- lab based, clean milk - extremely sustainable 'real milk' but made without any cows. Unlike any other option in the USD 22 billion dairy alternatives market today, it will be exactly similar to cow’s milk in terms of nutritional profile, taste, texture and could also be processed into butter, cheese and ice creams. They envision to disrupt the USD 700 billion conventional dairy market by giving the world its 1st 'cow free' real milk option, reducing the carbon footprint of milk by over 90% while being completely cruelty-free.

Non-invasive brain stimulation is a widely-utilized, FDA cleared treatment used for patients diagnosed with depression, but is limited to a hospital setting due to the cost of the device, and complexity of treatment application. Our proprietary brain stimulation device allows patients to be treated directly from their home, with the same efficacy, and at a lower cost of treatment. Currently in FDA pivotal phase for Major Depressive Disorder, and Pilot phase for Alzheimer's and Parkinson diseases.

Navigating chronic illness is an isolating and lonely process which ultimately reduces medical adherence and adversely impacts outcomes. There are over 100 deadly chronic conditions as 1 out of 2 Americans is currently living with at least 1 chronic condition. The US healthcare system has over $1 trillion dollars in direct costs. Medical adherence rates for therapeutic programs and medicine are only 50% because patients feel lonely, isolated, and unsupported in their chronic illness journey. Reviving Mind is an in-network telehealth provider that improves clinical outcomes and program adherence for the senior medicare and medicare-advantage population that is plagued with loneliness and chronic illness. This is done through a novel and proprietary clinical program and technology platform that integrates virtual, private, curated, and professionally led groups that scale up to 8-patients with individualized and goal oriented lifestyle medicine coaching that is automated but managed by a licensed provider. Scaling rapidly across the United States.

Our mission is to enable pharmaceutical and biotech companies to bring more antibody therapies to patients. Using AI and massively parallel experimentation, we design antibodies that precisely bind the disease target at the right location, while minimizing manufacturability and toxicity risks. We are a well-funded, revenue-generating, bilingual company of wet- and dry-lab scientists, and are founded by AI and protein design experts from Harvard University.

Kiwi Biosciences can help 18M Americans suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) enjoy a normal meal without running to the bathroom two hours later. We develop novel, patent-pending enzymes that break down common digestive triggers in food.

We are building a platform of bacterial molecules to awaken our body’s innate ability to control inflammation and heal. Our first indication is Crohn’s Disease, which affects over 500,000 Americans at an annual cost of $10B. After Crohn's disease, we are going for type 1 Diabetes and Multiple Sclerosis.

Parallel Bio created a human 'immune system in a dish' to discover drugs and immunotherapies more likely to work in patients. Our platform has all of the same elements as a human immune system, meaning you can test drugs and vaccines as if you were testing them in actual patients from the start. The biggest reason why 95% of new drugs fail is that they were tested in mice - but with our human platform, pharma companies will know which drugs will successfully treat patients, speeding up the process and reducing the cost. To date our platform has successfully been used to test 12 drugs, and vaccines against 8 different diseases. The company is founded by Robert DiFazio, a former Stanford R&D director with a PhD in immunology, and Juliana Hilliard, a former System1 Biosciences R&D lead with an MSc in bioengineering, both of whom have led drug discovery programs for years.

KaiPod Learning is a national network of microschools bringing school choice to every community in America. We work with education entrepreneurs to start high-quality microschools to better serve students and their families. As more families stand up for choice in education and as more educators look for alternative career pathways, KaiPod Learning is helping bring microschools into the mainstream.

Kodex makes it easy for companies to process, and respond to, subpoenas from governments around the world. Agencies, like the FBI, subpoena user data from customers like Coinbase, and thousands of other companies - without Kodex, companies largely rely on email, fax, and spreadsheets to manage them. Kodex is a SaaS tool that helps private sector companies manage relationships, workflows, and secure file transfer with government agencies who are seeking confidential information on a company's users. We streamline compliance operations, protect the privacy of their users, reduce error, and validate the legitimacy of government agents who are requesting information.

At Pirouette, we have developed a low-profile, disk-shaped, rugged injection device with a patient-centric focus on affordability, portability, and usability. The patented device, based on extensive patient input, is designed to make administering an injection as easy as pushing a button. This allows individuals with limited or no training to easily and intuitively perform an injection on themselves or others.

We are a biotechnology company integrating AI, computation and biological automation to accelerate the design of small molecule and protein therapeutics. Our mission is to decrease the timeline and cost of drug development, while improving the success rate of bring innovative medicines to patients in need. We have two drug discovery engines - ELVIS™ and ROSALYND™ - that enable the design of both small molecule and protein therapeutics, an unmatched capability in the AI drug discovery space. Our therapeutic area-agnostic, end-to-end technology powers the full length of early drug discovery - from novel hit discovery to hit to lead, and lead optimization. We are currently applying our technology to drug discovery programs in several areas including, but not limited to, neuroscience, infectious disease, immunology and oncology.

REGENT is building a new mode of transportation that will redefine regional mobility by 2026. Their first product, the seaglider, is an all-electric, hydrofoiling flying-boat that operates within a wingspan of the water's surface. By flying low on a cushion of air, seagliders unlock the ability to fly twice as far as an electric aircraft, while being regulated by maritime authorities enabling market entry for a fraction of the cost. REGENT has de-risked seaglider technology with a ¼-scale flying demonstration vehicle. By this summer, REGENT will fly humans on the 15,000 lb (7000kg) first full-scale prototype seaglider, which will be the largest electric-flying machine in history. By late 2026, REGENT’s customers - airlines and ferry companies – will begin commercial seaglider service on the 12-seat initial product. A 100 passenger version, already with firm orders, will follow several years later. In just four years, REGENT has accumulated >$10B in pre-orders (including firm deposits) from airlines and ferry companies around the world. Currently a team of 100, REGENT is led by MIT-trained, ex-Boeing engineers Billy Thalheimer and Mike Klinker. REGENT has raised over $100M to date from the likes of Founders Fund, Japan Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and Lockheed Martin, and is on contract with the US Marine Corps.

Valink Therapeutics develops next generation antibody-based therapeutics. We identify novel mechanism of action from known targets by incorporating multiple antibody modifications at once, rapidly and scalable generating complex drug candidates (bi-/multispecificity, multivalency and drug-conjugation in a single discovery process). Our research focus is on solid tumours poorly addressed by immunotherapy.

Volta Labs is a genomics applications company that has developed a cutting-edge digital fluidics platform to maximize performance and scalability of sample preparation in genomics while providing unparalleled consistency. Volta is transforming the way biological research and analyses are performed, allowing scientists to focus on what they do best -- pushing the boundaries of biology. As a collective of scientists and builders working at the intersection of engineering and biology, we imagine a world where extracting vital information from biological samples is as simple as pressing a button. That's our vision, and we're turning it into reality. Our HQ is in Boston’s Seaport, where we develop and manufacture our technology. We believe in cross-functional collaboration and continuous learning – whether your interest is in biology, MechEng, CompEng, or simply joining a fast-growing startup striving to make the world a better place, we'd love to welcome you to our team. Check out some of our blog posts to learn more about work life at Volta.

Kernal Bio is a biotech company pioneering mRNA 2.0 immunotherapies. We leverage selective mRNA-LNP technology to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases with precision, ensuring targeted cell delivery and minimal off-target effects. Our KR-402 program achieves over 90% delivery efficiency with T-cell-targeted LNPs, enabling direct CAR-T programming within the body and resulting in B-cell depletion within a week. Kernal Bio is led by a team with experience from MIT, Harvard, Merck, and BMS, boasting three FDA-approved therapies and over 120 patents. Based in Cambridge, MA, we are backed by Hummingbird Ventures, Amgen Ventures, HBM, and even NASA. With roots at MIT, Harvard and Biopharma, Kernal’s management team has deep expertise in mRNA therapeutics space. CEO Yusuf Erkul, M.D., M.B.A. is a successful drug hunter whose research at Merck enabled an FDA-approved drug for ovarian cancer. President Burak Yilmaz, M.S., previously founded Sentegen, a thriving synthetic biology company which commercializes synthetic DNA, RNA, and diagnostic kits for genetic and infectious diseases. Sr. VP of R&D Manfred Kraus is a leader in immuno-oncology, who was most recently Scientific Sr. Director at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS).

We are developing a new paradigm for consumer health tech wearables by replacing a 100lb optical instrument with an area of silicon smaller than a postage stamp.

Nextera Robotics is an AI-native Robotics and Industrial Automation company founded at MIT.

We are a nonprofit stool bank, expanding safe access to fecal transplants and catalyzing research on the human microbiome.

Stealth-mode, rapidly scaling, venture-backed startup at the vanguard of automated robotic surgery revolution -- just closed our Series A round. We are improving access to dental care in underserved populations by combining novel imaging technology with AI and surgical robotics to automate surgery in the $452B dental industry. We are bringing a new imaging modality to dentistry which can see inside teeth and below the gingiva all without the need for x-rays. AI is used to diagnose decay and plan treatment. Automated robotics reduces the time for surgery down to one minute, reducing patient discomfort and saving time and reducing cost for the dentist. YC 2020, Winner of the Forsyth DenTech 2021 CareCaptial award

PostEra is building a modern 21st century biopharma. We're using our advances in machine learning to accelerate Medicinal Chemistry and bring more cures to patients. PostEra advances small molecule programs through partnerships with biopharma while also advancing its own internal pipeline. We've raised $26M from top investors and closed $1Bn in AI partnerships, signing multi-year agreements with Amgen, Pfizer and the NIH. PostEra also launched and led the world's largest open-science drug discovery effort; COVID Moonshot.

Vendr built the AI negotiation agent that helps companies stop overpaying for software by using real contract data to benchmark prices and secure better deals automatically.

DNA has emerged as a compelling data storage medium due to its density, longevity, and eternal relevance compared to current memory technologies. However, the high price of synthesizing DNA remains a major bottleneck for adoption of this promising storage solution. We are pioneering new approaches to synthesizing DNA for data storage with enzymes and custom digital codecs. We are building an interdisciplinary team to build the world's most scalable information infrastructure in DNA. We seek technical experts in enzyme engineering, chemistry, hardware engineering, and information theory. We also seek business development to identify emerging markets for early use cases of our technology.

We develop surgical navigation and robotics tools to make minimally invasive surgeries easier, faster and more accessible.

At XGenomes, we are building a technology comprising novel biochemistry, hardware and algorithms for sequencing DNA. Our product will be streamlined: there is zero library preparation; we sequence directly on unadulterated single molecules of DNA; DNA extraction will be integrated with sequencing; there is no bioinformatics bottleneck. The sequence we produce will be of unprecedented accuracy due to several layers of in-built redundancy including the sequencing both strands of the double-helix concurrently. The sequence we produce will be complete, encompassing: structural as well as single nucleotide variants; long-range haplotype phase; the repetitive "dark matter" of the genome. The cost of goods (consumables) of sequencing will be <$10, which will allow us to price our product at a level that will help grow the market while still achieving >90% margin. We will start by offering access as a service to high value customers, which be followed by a razor and blade model of selling instruments and consumables.

Pyxai helps organizations evaluate, identify and source top talent by focusing on the best indicators of long-term job success, soft skills. Our proprietary, AI driven assessment tool helps organizations increase retention by at least 30% all while reducing the time to hire by more than 50%.

Alpha Vantage provides enterprise-grade financial market data through a set of powerful and developer-friendly data APIs and spreadsheets. Whether you need traditional asset classes (e.g., stocks, ETFs, commodities), economic metrics, foreign exchange rates, cryptocurrencies, fundamental data or even technical indicators, Alpha Vantage is your one-stop shop for global market data delivered through REST APIs.

We deploy location beacons to track the movements of patients and doctors, measure the inefficiencies in the doctors’ workflows, and then give the hospitals targeted recommendations on how to improve.