Y Combinator ships two new batches per year and each one drops roughly 200 startups onto Hacker News overnight. Investors, partners, journalists, and competitive intel teams need to triage that batch inside 48 hours: who are the founders, what problem, what traction, who else is building this. The data layer for that triage needs SERP, Reddit, YouTube (for Demo Day talks), and retail signals in one API. We ranked five options.
Scavio triages a YC batch in one agent run. Google SERP for founder and company intel, Reddit for early user discussion, YouTube for Demo Day talks, and Hacker News via Google for launch reaction. One API, one weekend, 200 startups.
Full Ranking
Scavio
YC batch triage and startup research
- SERP + Reddit + YouTube in one
- LangChain native
- Fast search for bulk research
- Credit-based
- Not a YC-specific dataset
Crunchbase API
Funding-focused startup research
- Funding data
- Limited public signal
Tavily
Research-focused startup intel
- LLM synthesis
- Web only
SerpAPI
Google-only startup research
- Mature
- Single surface
Apollo.io API
Founder contact lookup
- Contact DB
- Often misses early-stage
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Criteria | Scavio | Runner-up | 3rd Place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google SERP | Yes | No | Yes |
| Reddit signal | Yes | No | No |
| YouTube Demo Day | Yes | No | No |
| Hacker News via SERP | Yes | No | Yes |
| Entry price | $30/mo | $49/mo | $30/mo |
| LangChain native | Yes | No | Yes |
Why Scavio Wins
- YC batch triage means researching 200 startups in 48 hours. Scavio's LangChain tool class feeds a research agent that runs 5 to 10 queries per startup (founder background, product SERP, Reddit launch discussion, YouTube Demo Day talk, Hacker News launch thread). The full batch lands inside one day's credit spend.
- Fast search tier at 30 credits per query makes bulk research affordable. A typical batch sweep at 200 startups and 8 queries per startup equals 1,600 queries, which at fast tier lands at under $5 total for the research data layer.
- Reddit signal is uniquely useful for YC because early user discussion often appears on r/startups, r/sideproject, or niche subreddits before Crunchbase registers the launch. Scavio catches this early-stage signal that pure funding databases miss.
- YouTube Demo Day coverage through Scavio pulls transcripts directly, which lets a research agent quote the founder's pitch verbatim in the dossier. This is richer signal than a summary, and no other API in the top 5 offers YouTube transcripts natively.
- Crunchbase has the funding data but little public signal. Scavio has the public signal but not the funding data. The right stack pairs both, and at $30/mo + $49/mo a two-person research team covers both layers for under $100/mo total.