You’re reading Category Surfers, where we spend hours researching the fastest-growing software categories every week. So you can discover the next unicorn SaaS idea before it explodes.

Y Combinator investments in the W23 batch

Best way to see a trend? Understand what folks that see a lot of things do and copy them (or not!).

YC sees almost all new startups - they are every first-time founder's wet dream.

So today I’m popping into YC’s heads to deliver the most recent trends in tech and B2B SaaS from the past 6 months.

I noticed 2 major trends across 242 companies from the most recent winter 2023 batch:

• B2B SaaS is the shit. This is the biggest area YC invests in. But we want one level deeper results. You’re here because you know B2B SaaS is awesome. So I did some Excel magic to find what is hot inside B2B SaaS from YC (image above).

• AI is the second biggest sector. Duh! But the major trend here is developer tools. Most AI tools from YC are focused on developer productivity, not making weird artwork.
  

Be sure to stay subscribed as next week I’ll release how these trends have changed over time aside from the most obvious ones like AI.

And if you want to see raw data and what companies YC invested in, click here to view my spreadsheet.

See you next week. Please tell your friends.