Four India-linked startups have made it into Y Combinator's W2026 batch, as listed on YC's directory on 9 October 2026 — continuing the strong Indian representation in the world's most influential accelerator.
The cohort: Waybill (Plaksha alumni Rishi Laddha and Tushar Goyal) is building AI hardware procurement — supplier discovery, ordering, payments, shipping, customs and inventory. Ressl AI (IIT Bombay alumni Arushi Gandhi and Abhishek Eswaran) deploys AI agents to automate enterprise software maintenance. Ritivel (IIT Bombay's Pavan Kalyan Tankala, Nirmit Arora and Gunin Gupta) builds AI tools that draft pharma regulatory documents. Cardboard (BITS Pilani's Saksham Aggarwal and Ishan Sharma) is a browser-based AI video editor built from Bengaluru.
The batch skews heavily toward applied AI for unglamorous enterprise workflows — procurement, maintenance, regulatory paperwork — exactly the vertical-AI pattern Indian investors say captures the most value.
Why it matters for founders
YC's India picks are a leading indicator of what global investors will fund next. This batch's signal: vertical AI for boring, expensive enterprise workflows. If your AI startup does paperwork nobody wants to do, you're on trend.
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