YC Research — Companies × Requests for Startups

Period: Winter 2022Fall 2026
2,745companies
15batches
66RFS themes
3,527RFS↔company matches
82%coverage

Partner ranking · 17 group partners · 2,215 attributed

Who actually runs YC — partner ranking & per-batch load

YC group partners assigned via the 'Primary Partner' field scraped from each company page. Coverage is 80.7% — older batches (W22-S23) and inactive company pages don't expose the field. Where the data is clean (W25-F26: ~100%), every YC company has exactly one accountable partner. This is the org chart behind the dealflow.

17
unique partners
130
avg companies / partner
121
median per partner
81%
attribution coverage
Caveat
Partner attribution is most reliable for W25 onward (95-100% coverage). Older batches have ~50-80% coverage because YC removes partner listing from pages of inactive/acquired/dead companies. Treat older partner totals as floors. Mean companies-per-partner is computed only over attributed companies.

Ranking — all partners by total companies

Sort: total companies ever assigned. The top tier (Friedman, Flora, Dessaigne, Alstromer, Blomfield) are 4-year veterans handling 200+ companies each.

#PartnerCompaniesΣ raised
1Jared Friedman233$998M
2Brad Flora223$507M
3Nicolas Dessaigne220$673M
4Gustaf Alstromer213$1.74B
5Tom Blomfield207$728M
6Aaron Epstein186$791M
7Diana Hu182$765M
8Harj Taggar170$420M
9Garry Tan121$213M
10David Lieb118$125M
11Pete Koomen108$231M
12Tyler Bosmeny74$117M
13Andrew Miklas55$142M
14Jon Xu51$35M
15Ankit Gupta42$36M
16Harshita Arora11$32M
17Vivian Midha Shen1$0

Partner workload per batch

Companies per partner per batch. Darker = heavier load. Empty = partner not active in that batch.

PartnerW '22S '22W '23S '23W '24S '24F '24W '25Sp '25S '25F '25W '26Sp '26S '26F '26
Jared Friedman1620372328202927312
Brad Flora41344018201925125
Nicolas Dessaigne172923142122172623262
Gustaf Alstromer3924291421192319124
Tom Blomfield2551519272423192426
Aaron Epstein2713291318231223226
Diana Hu20422251723162082511
Harj Taggar10212025211024147117
Garry Tan2125141710751232131
David Lieb41121161201629
Pete Koomen216192142012023
Tyler Bosmeny37527302
Andrew Miklas15101029
Jon Xu2322231
Ankit Gupta1212261
Harshita Arora101
Vivian Midha Shen1

Per-partner breakdown

Top 3 funded companies + top RFS themes each partner is concentrated in.

Jared Friedman
Winter 2022Summer 2026 · 10 batches
233
companies
Σ raised: $998Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 66saas_challengers · 63none · 51llm_back_office · 48ai_build_enterprise_sw · 37
Brad Flora
Winter 2022Winter 2026 · 9 batches
223
companies
Σ raised: $507Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
none · 56saas_challengers · 56ai_native_service_companies · 54llm_back_office · 44ai_build_enterprise_sw · 31
Nicolas Dessaigne
Winter 2022Fall 2026 · 11 batches
220
companies
Σ raised: $673Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 64saas_challengers · 56ai_build_enterprise_sw · 45llm_back_office · 43none · 22
Gustaf Alstromer
Winter 2022Winter 2026 · 10 batches
213
companies
Σ raised: $1.74Bmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 68llm_back_office · 50saas_challengers · 49none · 40ai_build_enterprise_sw · 28
Tom Blomfield
Winter 2022Spring 2026 · 10 batches
207
companies
Σ raised: $728Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 78llm_back_office · 69saas_challengers · 44none · 39ai_build_enterprise_sw · 25
Aaron Epstein
Winter 2022Spring 2026 · 10 batches
186
companies
Σ raised: $791Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 60saas_challengers · 51none · 41llm_back_office · 34ai_build_enterprise_sw · 30
Diana Hu
Winter 2022Summer 2026 · 12 batches
182
companies
Σ raised: $765Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 41saas_challengers · 40ai_build_enterprise_sw · 36llm_back_office · 33none · 28
Harj Taggar
Winter 2022Spring 2026 · 11 batches
170
companies
Σ raised: $420Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 55saas_challengers · 46ai_build_enterprise_sw · 35none · 31llm_back_office · 27
Garry Tan
Winter 2022Fall 2026 · 13 batches
121
companies
Σ raised: $213Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 34llm_back_office · 32none · 24saas_challengers · 20ai_build_enterprise_sw · 14
David Lieb
Summer 2023Spring 2026 · 8 batches
118
companies
Σ raised: $125Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 38llm_back_office · 35ai_build_enterprise_sw · 29saas_challengers · 19none · 15
Pete Koomen
Summer 2022Spring 2026 · 10 batches
108
companies
Σ raised: $231Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 32saas_challengers · 24ai_build_enterprise_sw · 21llm_back_office · 20none · 18
Tyler Bosmeny
Winter 2024Spring 2026 · 6 batches
74
companies
Σ raised: $117Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 21saas_challengers · 18none · 13llm_back_office · 12ai_build_enterprise_sw · 10
Andrew Miklas
Summer 2023Spring 2026 · 5 batches
55
companies
Σ raised: $142Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 25ai_build_enterprise_sw · 17saas_challengers · 14llm_back_office · 14software_for_agents · 6
Jon Xu
Summer 2024Summer 2026 · 5 batches
51
companies
Σ raised: $35Mmed: $500K
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 19ai_build_enterprise_sw · 16software_for_agents · 10saas_challengers · 9llm_back_office · 8
Ankit Gupta
Summer 2023Summer 2026 · 5 batches
42
companies
Σ raised: $36Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_build_enterprise_sw · 18software_for_agents · 11llm_back_office · 7foundation_models_biology · 6ml_robotics · 6
Harshita Arora
Winter 2026Summer 2026 · 2 batches
11
companies
Σ raised: $32Mmed: $500K
Top companies
Top RFS themes
ai_build_enterprise_sw · 6none · 3software_for_agents · 2llm_back_office · 2foundation_models_biology · 2
Vivian Midha Shen
Summer 2026Summer 2026 · 1 batches
1
companies
Σ raised: $0med: $0
Top RFS themes
ai_native_service_companies · 1llm_back_office · 1
What the partner data tells us
YC's dealflow runs through ~17 group partners. The top 5 (Friedman, Flora, Dessaigne, Alstromer, Blomfield) have each personally signed off on 200+ YC companies — that's ~50 companies/year/partner, sustained for 4 years. With ~10-15 companies per partner per batch and 2 batches/year before quarterly format, this is consistent. Specialisation by RFS theme is real but partial — most partners span 5+ themes. The 'Primary Partner' system is YC's load-balancer: each company gets one accountable human, but the partner pool is far smaller than the founder pool. That's why partner taste, not RFS labels, is what actually drives selection decisions.