The S25 YC Breakdown: 167 startups, 12 most promising companies, complete founder and companies database & 1 min pitches from X25

Full breakdown of the batch: 167 startups by sector, my 12 top picks, complete founder and companies database, and 1 min pitches from X25

Hey everybody, welcome back to Product Market Fit 🚀🚀

This newsletter is brought to you by Boardy, who helped me reaching out to innacessible founders.

The S25 YC Breakdown

YC’s Summer 2025 batch (S25) will have Demo Day next Tuesday, Sept 9.

If you care about startups, this is one of the few events you have to follow. Y Combinator is the single most influential accelerator in tech history: Dropbox, Stripe, Airbnb, DoorDash, Coinbase, Rippling… all came out of it.

Every batch sets the tone for the next wave of startup innovation.

I was at YC’s Spring 2025 Demo Day earlier this year, and the quality of founders was outstanding: ambitious, fast-moving, and global from day one.

Since then, I’ve spent the past weeks digging through every company in this Summer batch: reading decks, speaking with founders, and doing my own research.

I’m now in SF meeting some of these founders in person, and I must say the bar is high.

The ambition, the speed, and the quality of execution I’m seeing up close make this one of the strongest batches I’ve gone through.

👉 In today’s newsletter, you’ll get:

1. A market map of the entire batch, broken down by sector.

2. My 12 picks for the startups that actually stand out (and why).

3. A curated database with every company and founder profiles, contact info, and details.

4. 1 min pitches from X25

Because here’s the truth: Demo Day isn’t just a showcase for investors.

It’s a cheat sheet for anyone building or investing in tech. The best founders and ideas you’ll see next week usually define the next big markets, and if you know how to read the batch, you can see where capital, talent, and customers are heading before the crowd.

Check it out with the free trial (no strings attached), or jump straight into premium if you’re ready for the full scoop👇