Y Combinator (YC), the San Francisco-based startup school and incubator, announced a list of themes it wants startups to focus on for its Fall 2025 batch. YC says that these ideas represent some of the most significant opportunities right now, and much to nobody’s surprise, they are all mostly concentrated on AI.
Drawing from the recently announced AI Action plan by the US government and its directions to the Departments of Labour and Commerce to fund retraining programmes for workers in physical labour jobs, YC wants to fund startups building solutions using AI to train workers where there is a shortage of highly skilled ones, such as electricians, HVAC technicians, and more.
“This is where multimodal AI could create opportunities — for example, maybe a voice AI could coach someone through these tasks. Or perhaps some combination of AR/VR could let people practice the work in simulation with an AI tutor using vision models to watch them and give feedback,” said YC.
Besides, YC also wants startups to focus on expanding the current video generation capabilities, which allow users to create simulated environments while shopping, house hunting, or building video games on the fly.
While highlighting how AI has enabled startups with small teams to reach unprecedented levels of growth, YC says that it wants to fund high-agency startups that will generate the maximum revenue per employee.
“These small teams have incredible advantages over bloated incumbents, too. With smaller, efficient teams at scale, they won’t get bogged down with the politics, excessive meetings, and lack of focus that grinds huge companies to a halt. They can just focus on winning with better speed and execution,” said YC.
“We want to fund these high-agency founders to help them build the first 10-person, $100b dollar company.”
Other themes that YC wants startups to focus on include infrastructure for multi-agent systems, AI native enterprise software — ‘think of a Cursor for HR, accounting,’ and solutions that help the government use LLMs for consulting. “The U.S. government spends over $100 billion a year on consulting. As you might imagine, this isn’t the most efficient or innovative part of our economy,” said the startup school.
YC started in 2005 and has since become one of the most influential forces in the global startup ecosystem, especially in today’s age of AI. Companies and startups backed by YC have created over $800 billion in market value. It recently increased to four batches a year from two, and for each startup, it invests $500,000, taking a 7% stake with $125,000 and converting the remaining $375,000 into shares in future funding rounds.
Also Read: Y Combinator’s 20-Year Journey from Incubator to an $800 Billion Powerhouse
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