The 10 most exciting AI agent startups at Y Combinator’s Demo Day for its first-ever spring cohort

Christmas came early for Y Combinator. The storied Silicon Valley accelerator had AI agents startups at the top of their wish list — and the startup community delivered.

When Y Combinator issued a callout earlier this year for more founders building so-called “agentic” AI — software that can essentially think and perform tasks on its own — entrepreneurs were all ears. Of the 144 companies in YC’s spring 2025 batch, 70 build agents, according to the accelerator’s startup directory. Many of the spring batch startups showed off their technology at YC’s Demo Day on Wednesday.

Each batch brings together a few hundred early-stage startups for a three-month sprint of product development and mentorship in San Francisco. Tens of thousands apply, and only a fraction make the cut. YC invests $500,000 in every company it selects, and its alumni roster includes success stories such as Stripe, Airbnb, DoorDash, Coinbase, and Instacart.

2025 marks the first time YC has run a spring cohort, which ran from April to June.

For its inaugural spring batch, YC partners said they were especially keen on startups exploring new and creative ways to harness artificial intelligence. Many of the startups that made the cut apply agentic AI across industries — from cybersecurity to consumer fintech to healthcare.

BI dug through YC’s Spring 2025 cohort to find 10 AI agent startups revolutionizing their respective industries. To represent the spread of startups in the overall cohort, we picked a handful of the many startups YC categorized as B2B, two healthcare startups, and one each of fintech, consumer, and industrials.

From technology that teaches old robots new tricks, to agents that help consumers apply for the best mortgage, here are some of the most exciting agentic startups in YC’s inaugural spring batch.

Aegis

What it does: Automates the insurance appeals process for healthcare providers to appeal and win denied health insurance claims

Year founded: 2025 in San Francisco by Krishang Todi, Aarav Bajaj, and Dhanya Shah

YC Partner: Aaron Epstein

Industries: Healthcare, Healthcare IT

Airweave

What it does: Turns a company’s productivity apps and tools into searchable databases for AI agents

Year founded: 2025 in San Francisco by Lennert Jansen and Rauf Akdemir

YC Partner: Aaron Epstein

Industries: B2B, Infrastructure

Approval AI

What it does: A co-pilot that automates the mortgage process, from rate shopping to negotiation to paperwork

Year founded: 2025 in San Francisco by Arjun Lalwani and Helly Shah

YC Partner: Pete Koomen

Industries: Fintech, Consumer Finance

Atlog

What it does: AI voice agents that conduct sales and payment calls for furniture rental companies

Year founded: 2024 by Vraj Parikh, John Bettinger, and Shaun Karakkattu

YC Partner: David Lieb

Industries: B2B, Operations

Beluga Labs

What it does: A Rippling for content creators that uses AI agents to organize income and expenses and analyze tax incentives

Year founded: 2024 in San Francisco by Fernando Young and Jack Swisher

YC Partner: Dalton Caldwell

Industries: B2B, Operations

Casco

What it does: Simulates attacks on a company’s AI agents and systems to discover vulnerabilities and find solutions

Year founded: 2025 by René Brandel and Ian Saultz

YC Partner: Dalton Caldwell

Industries: B2B, Security

Galen AI

What it does: Connects hundreds of healthcare records and fitness tracker data into information an AI agent can use to offer personalized health and wellness advice

Year founded: 2025 by Viraj Mehta and Priyanka Shrestha

YC Partner: Dalton Caldwell

Industries: Healthcare, Consumer health and wellness

Mbodi AI

What it does: Teach existing robots new skills using natural language and AI agents

Year founded: 2025 in New York by Xavier (Tianhao) Chi and Sebastian Peralta

YC Partner: Pete Koomen

Industries: Industrials, Manufacturing and robotics

Plexe

What it does: Builds open-source agents that build predictive machine-learning models from natural language prompts

Year founded: 2025 in San Francisco by Vaibhav Dubey and Marcello De Bernardi

YC Partner: Nicolas Dessaigne

Industries: B2B, engineering, product, and design

Willow

What it does: A voice dictation app that replaces the keyword with spoken word and uses an AI agent to craft messages in a user’s tone.

Year founded: 2025 in Palo Alto by Allan Guo and Lawrence Liu

YC Partner: Nicolas Dessaigne

Industries: Consumer

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