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At Y Combinatorâs Spring 2025 Demo Day on Wednesday, nearly every presenting startup had something to do with AI â theyâre either developing AI agents or creating tools to facilitate their development.
Indeed, several founders seem to be taking a page out of the playbook of several successful AI startups: About half a dozen startups were presenting variations of âCursor for X.â For example, Den is building a âCursor for knowledge workers,â and Vesence is on its way to make a âCursor for lawyers.â
It wasnât all only about AI, though. We noticed several startups are working on robotics, which seems to be having a bit of a revival at the moment.
Below are some of the startups that caught both investorsâ and our attention.
What it does: SEO for LLMs
Why itâs a fave: How people search for content is changing, with folks using various AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity to find content. Understandably, brands need to find a way to increase their visibility on these platforms. Anvil claims it helps brands measure, optimize, and increase their presence on these AI tools.
What it does: Builds 3D chips
Why itâs a fave: Transistors arenât getting smaller as fast as they used to, so Atumâs founders propose the best new way to put more transistors on a chip, and therefore increase processing power, is to stack them in three dimensions. Investors told me that Atumâs vision is so revolutionary that the company has a chance to become the next Nvidia.
What it does: Automates enterprise software implementation
Why itâs a fave: The startup says prominent software vendors like SAP, ServiceNow, AWS, and Box have already reached out to use Auctorâs solution themselves and potentially for help with integrating software at customer sites.
What it does: AI copilot for solopreneurs
Why itâs a fave: Cactus says people who run businesses all by themselves are often too busy to pursue new opportunities. The startup claims its AI bot can take off some of the load by answering calls and accepting payments on your behalf.
What it does: Cursor for enterprise knowledge workers
Why itâs a fave: Investors told me this is one of the hottest companies in the batch. Den promises its AI agents can replace Slack and Notion, enabling a companyâs employees to interact and share information with software tailored to each enterpriseâs specific needs.
What it does:Â Automates customer operations with AI
Why itâs a fave: Eloquent says its AI bots can help customers of financial services companies do things like automatically unfreeze bank accounts or add drivers to car insurance policies. In other words, Eloquent promises an end to long waits for human customer service. The startup claims financial companies can deploy its AI near instantly without needing to involve internal engineering teams. Â Eloquent has already raised âa large seed round,â Tugce Bulut, the startupâs co-founder and CEO said on the TBPN podcast. Â
What it does: Tooling for evaluation and reinforcement learning
Why itâs a fave: Evaluating all the new AI tools for quality is snowballing into a big, difficult problem. LLM Data Company says it can help with its own LLMs that can evaluate the quality of an AI agent, and itâs already working with customers, including Perplexity.
What it does: AI-powered Bloomberg terminal
Why itâs a fave: âTerminals are dashboards and not thinking tools,â says Amandeep Singh, co-founder of Scalar Field. While the startupâs AI agents wonât âthinkâ for you, it claims they can manipulate financial data with more flexibility than existing financial tools.
What it does: The open-source AI agent builder
Why itâs a fave: Sim Studios wants to do for AI agents what Figma did for design: make them incredibly easy to build. Sim Studios people, including customers Epiq, Mercore, and the U.S. Department of Defense, have built AI agents for critical functions such as data transformations, real-world event simulations, and deep research.
What it does: Quantum accelerated AI servers to speed up AI training and inference
Why itâs a fave: While a fully functioning quantum computer may still be years away, the industry has been making progress. What caught my eye about Sygaldry is that its co-founder and CEO is Chad Rigetti, who founded and took his company public via a SPAC in 2021.
What it does: Vibe coding to build applications
Why itâs a fave: Investors who saw a demo of Vybe building apps told me that it can create all sorts of cool tools. One person I talked to even called it a âclear winnerâ of the batch.
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Reporter, Venture
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