Podcasts Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) 2026

Overlap builds multimodal AI agents that can do literally anything you want related to video, such as finding specific moments, generating clips, or analyzing your video library. What takes media companies thousands of hours, we do in seconds.

Wondercraft introduces vibe creation, creating video through natural conversation.

We’re a team of podcast fanatics with more than 20 years of combined experience in the audio space. We are building the fastest-growing podcast player and are now backed by YCombinator (W18). At Podcast App, we are building an audio platform to help millions of people in their pursuit of happiness. Under one roof, we bring the best and most powerful podcasts, audiobooks, and meditations from leading minds and experts around the world. Our love for podcasts began when we discovered their power to make our ordinary day-to-day tasks more enjoyable and meaningful. Podcasts helped transform tedious activities like commutes or household chores into more positive experiences, helping us learn new skills, stay informed, or pass the time with captivating stories. We want to help people in their pursuit of happiness. We’ve been podcast aficionados for years, and, even for us, finding the right one to listen to is difficult and frustrating. With tens of millions to choose from and more being released every day, the problem’s only getting worse. It’s time to fix this problem. Americans spend 30 billion hours every year commuting and doing household chores. We want to make those hours worthwhile. By building technology that makes it easy to access great podcasts, we’ll help millions of people reclaim lost time and experience more fun, inspiration, and personal growth every day. Our product, Podcast App, is a minimalist podcast player enhanced with cutting-edge technology. We leverage machine learning to build customized podcast playlists for our users based on their interests and tastes. If you want to get in touch, email us at hello@podcast.app.

Breaker is a podcast listening and discovery application. Most podcasts are free, but serious publishers are spending big budgets to make high quality audio content like Serial, which hit 100 million downloads and made podcasts mainstream. 67 million Americans are already listening to podcasts a month. Breaker wants to sign exclusive deals to distribute the best premium podcasts and charge users $6 per month. First, its goal is to build a huge listener audience by making the best podcast consumption app. It launched today, and will offer podcasters ways to connect and get feedback from their community, and analytics about what content performs best. It has a stunning 67% retention rate after a month for beta users. If it can convince people to pay for what’s often free, it could become the preferred place for podcasters to talk.