Y Combinator
Requests for Startups
Problems curated by Y Combinator's partners—validated ideas for founders to tackle. These aren't random suggestions; they're opportunities backed by deep market insight and funding appetite.
Spring 2026
Latest problems from YC's Spring 2026 batch
Cursor for Product Managers
As AI coding agents handle implementation, the bottleneck shifts to deciding what to build. Create the intelligent product management tool that analyzes customer data, proposes features, and generates specs that coding agents can execute.
AI-Native Hedge Funds
The hedge funds of the future won't bolt AI onto existing strategies—they'll use AI agents to discover entirely new ones. Build the fund where AI analyzes filings, synthesizes research, and executes trades autonomously.
AI-Native Agencies: Software Margins on Services
Instead of selling AI tools to help agencies work faster, become the agency. Use AI to deliver design, advertising, legal, and consulting services with software-like margins and infinite scalability.
Stablecoin Financial Services
Stablecoins sit in the regulatory sweet spot between DeFi chaos and TradFi bureaucracy. Build the financial services layer—yield accounts, cross-border payments, tokenized assets—on this compliant crypto infrastructure.
AI Tools for Government at Scale
Government processes millions of forms annually but still prints digital submissions for manual review. AI can process applications, detect fraud, and clear backlogs—if you can navigate the sales cycle. Once you're in, you're in for decades.
Software-Defined Metal Mills
American metal mills have 8-30 week lead times because they optimize for tonnage, not speed. Modern software and automation can cut lead times to days while improving margins. Build the manufacturing stack that brings metal production into the 21st century.
AI Guidance for Physical Work
Workers in field service, manufacturing, and healthcare need months of training before they're productive. Real-time AI coaching through phones, AirPods, and smart glasses can make anyone effective immediately—'turn off that valve,' 'use the ⅜ inch wrench.'
Fall 2025
Problems from YC's Fall 2025 batch
AI-Powered Vocational Training for the Physical Infrastructure Workforce
The AI revolution requires massive physical infrastructure—data centers, semiconductor fabs, power plants. We need 500,000 more electricians, HVAC technicians, and welders by 2030. Build AI training programs that compress years of apprenticeship into months.
Generative Video as a Computing Primitive
Video generation models now produce photorealistic 8-second clips indistinguishable from reality. Soon, generating video will cost nearly nothing. Treat video as a new computing primitive—not output—and build apps, tools, and infrastructure for this unlimited-video world.
The $100B Company with 10 People
Cloud eliminated infrastructure costs. AI is eliminating headcount costs. High-agency teams of 5-10 people can now build multi-billion dollar companies with $500K in funding. The metric that matters: revenue per employee. Some teams will hit $100M per person.
Infrastructure for Multi-Agent AI Systems
AI agents are evolving from single chatbots into distributed systems with thousands of sub-agents running in parallel. This is the Hadoop/Spark moment for AI. Build the infrastructure that makes orchestrating agent fleets as routine as deploying a web service.
The AI-Native Salesforce
Salesforce and ServiceNow were founded 25 years ago and rode cloud to $200B+ market caps. AI presents the same once-in-a-generation platform shift. Build the enterprise software where AI isn't a feature—it's the foundation. Think Cursor for sales, HR, and finance.
Replace $100B in Government Consulting with AI
The federal government spends $100B+ annually on consultants from Deloitte, Accenture, and Booz Allen. Most of this work—research, analysis, report writing, process documentation—can now be done by AI. Build software that makes consultants obsolete.
Summer 2025
Problems from YC's Summer 2025 batch
AI-Staffed Companies That Compete With Incumbents
Don't build AI tools for law firms—build an AI law firm. Don't build AI for accounting—build an AI accounting firm. Use AI to rebuild entire industries from scratch, competing directly against slow-moving incumbents.
Reinvent the Phone Call with Voice AI
Phone calls are a $100B+ market that hasn't fundamentally changed in a century. Voice AI can now hold real conversations—scheduling, selling, supporting—with latency and quality indistinguishable from humans. Build the future of voice.
AI for Scientific Discovery
Scientific breakthroughs are bottlenecked by human bandwidth—reading papers, running experiments, analyzing data. AI can accelerate discovery 10x in drug development, materials science, chemical engineering, and climate modeling. Build the tools that help scientists discover faster.
The AI Chief of Staff
CEOs have chiefs of staff. Everyone else has overflowing inboxes and chaotic calendars. Build the AI assistant that actually handles your email, schedules your meetings, and executes your tasks—without creating more work than it saves.
Automate Healthcare's $1 Trillion Administrative Burden
The U.S. healthcare system spends $1 trillion annually on administration—more than any other country spends on healthcare, period. Prior authorization alone wastes 34 hours per physician per week. AI can eliminate this bureaucratic waste and let clinicians focus on patients.
The AI Tutor That Scales to Every Student
Benjamin Bloom proved in 1984 that one-on-one tutoring improves student performance by 2 standard deviations. But tutors don't scale. Multimodal AI—voice, vision, interactive—can finally deliver personalized tutoring to every student at near-zero marginal cost.
The Developer Tools Stack for Robotics
Physical robots are advancing rapidly, but the software is stuck in the 1990s. Robotics needs its 'web development moment'—intuitive tools that let developers build for robots as easily as they build for the browser. Create the React, Vercel, and GitHub for physical automation.
Reinvent Education for 1.5 Billion Students
1.5 billion students worldwide receive one-size-fits-all education designed for the industrial age. AI enables true personalization—unique learning paths adjusted in real-time for each student. Build the infrastructure for education that actually adapts.
Commercial-Grade AI Security for Every Home
The $20B home security market is stuck on motion sensors and grainy cameras. Commercial buildings have AI that distinguishes threats from false alarms. Bring that intelligence to every home—security that recognizes faces, detects anomalies, and actually protects.
Let Anyone Build AI Automation
Every employee does repetitive tasks that should be automated. But they can't code, and IT is backlogged for months. Build the platform where anyone can create AI agents for their specific workflows—no-code for the AI agent era.
Voice-First Email
Knowledge workers spend 2+ hours daily in email, much of it while commuting, exercising, or doing chores. Voice AI can now process email hands-free—triage, respond, and organize through conversation. Build the interface that liberates people from their inboxes.
Democratize Financial Advice
Wealthy families pay 1% of assets for financial advisors. Everyone else gets generic tips and conflicted recommendations. AI can deliver personalized, unbiased financial guidance at near-zero cost—budgeting, investing, tax planning, and more. Build the advisor for the 90%.
Building one of these?
YC wants to fund founders tackling these problems. If you're working on something related, apply to Y Combinator.