$65,000 YC Agents Hackathon

The First Overnight YC Agents Hackathon
Friday, Aug. 22nd – Saturday, Aug. 23rd | YC Office | Application Required

Applications are now closed.
We're sorry if you were not able to join us at the YC Agents Hackathon. Please subscribe to the Dedalus Events Calendar on Luma to stay updated on future hackathons we host, and visit https://dedaluslabs.ai to try our new Agents SDK.
Are you a YC-backed founder looking to network with attendees and guests from OpenAI, Anthropic, etc? Attend the post-hackathon mixer: https://lu.ma/9i2pvgcb
Attend the official hackathon after-party, sponsored by Pally (YC S25): https://partiful.com/e/LkQGwdR0WuAx0liy8efu

A small, high-signal day for people who ship.
Join us at the YC office for an invite-only hackathon focused on AI Agents and MCP. We're bringing together top builders, current-batch YC founders, and guests from OpenAI, Anthropic, Vercel, Convex, Vapi, and Y Combinator for the first-ever overnight hackathon in the YC office ending in live demos and shipped product.
Capacity is limited; applications are required.
Who Should Apply
Your projects make it past localhost. You've shipped agents, tooling, or infra, or you can show relevant repos and experience.

What to Expect
Doors open at 6pm on Friday. IDs will be checked by security at the door.
Kickoff talks start at 6:30 with team formation taking place immediately after over dinner. Focused building all night fueled by a ridiculous amount of snacks, coffee, iced lattes, and four different types of energy drinks.
Speakers and panels (to be announced) throughout the day Saturday, with building ending at 6pm—exactly 24 hours.
An evening of demos and networking open to all recent YC founders and invited guests from sponsoring companies.
Winners to be announced at 8:30pm, Saturday.
You will not be hungry. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner from a local award-winning chef. Caffeine and snacks provided throughout the day. Vegan, vegetarian, and health-conscious options available.
Prizes
$80,000 total prize pool. See the hackathon Discord for further details.
Credits & Support
Generous credits from OpenAI
$100 Anthropic API credits
$250 Browser Use API credits
$200 Vercel credits
3 free months of Convex Pro
$20 Vapi API credits
Free access to Nia for the duration of the hackathon
Free access to AgentMail for the duration of the hackathon
Mentorship and tech support provided by the hosting YC companies.
Tracks
Tools for Agents: Infra and tools (MCP) that enable agents to act
Developer & Code Agents: Agents that write, read, and reason about code
Consumer Agents: Lifestyle, shopping, finance, and productivity tools
Web Agents: Browsing, scraping, and task automation online
Agents for Enterprise: Automation of everyday business needs; GTM, legal, hiring, admin, business analytics, marketing, creative, etc
For track hosts and prizes, please see the hackathon Discord.
Rules & Submission Criteria
Submission Criteria can be found in the hackathon Discord.
Speakers & Judges
Jared Friedman: Jared Friedman is Managing Director, Software and Group Partner at YC. He was co-founder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web. Jared previously worked at a pioneering AI company and studied computer science at Harvard.
James Cowling: James is CTO and Co-founder at Convex, where he drives technical decision-making and advocates for simple, elegant solutions to complex problems. Previously, he was a Senior Principal Engineer at Dropbox and holds a PhD from MIT in distributed transaction processing and consensus protocols. James enjoys building things, fixing motorcycles, and playing in a cover band.
Wayne Sutton: Wayne Sutton is Head of Community and Events at Convex, where he leads developer programs, meetups, and the Convex Discord community. He has organized 100+ events for over 50,000 attendees with startups and Fortune 500 companies. He enjoys adventure motorcycling, fitness, and connecting with founders.
Dan Goosewin: Dan Goosewin is a software engineer and entrepreneur with a decade of experience in web development and cloud platforms, currently leading developer relations at Vapi. Originally from Ufa, Russia, he is passionate about software, video games, finance, entrepreneurship, and ducks.
Hosts (YC '25)
Dedalus: MCP gateway-as-a-service for agentic AI workflows ?
Kernel: Crazy Fast Browser Infrastructure for AI web agents
Interfere: Write code that fixes itself in production
Nozomio: Best-in-class context augmentation for codegen tools
Browser Use: We enable AI to control your browser
AgentMail: API to give agents their own inboxes
Autumn: Making Stripe easy for AI
Selection & Format
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis, accepted participants have 48 hours to confirm. Teams of up to 4 are welcome; there will be time for solo builders to form teams on site. Demoing in-person is mandatory for all accepted participants.
Logistics
Bring your laptop and charger. Final venue details will be shared with accepted attendees.
Sponsors
Anthropic, OpenAI, Vercel, Convex, Vapi, & Y Combinator