You asked about Hard Tech
1,986 people built something like it. 279 are gone.
That is 16% of the ones whose fate we could settle, against 23% across the whole register. 215 were acquired.
| Launched | What it was | Today |
|---|---|---|
| 2014-06-01 | Building the world's first fusion power plant · helionenergy.com | still up |
| 2018-01-01 | YCSRTX Powering a better future for textiles. · srtxlabs.com | still up |
| 2016-06-01 | YCValidere A carbon MRV solution for energy and hard-to-abate sectors · validere.com | still up |
| 2015-06-01 | The sleep fitness company. · eightsleep.com | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | Robots for longer-lasting, better-tasting fish at scale. · shinkei.systems | still up |
| 2020-01-01 | Robotic Automation for cancer diagnostics - Robotic Microscopes &… · morphlelabs.com | still up |
| 2020-06-01 | At-Home health monitoring with silicon photonic chips for data centers · siphoxhealth.com | still up |
| 2021-01-01 | Software orchestrated mass production of plastics · atomic.industries | still up |
| 2021-01-01 | Physical AI for Warehouses and Factories · fluxauto.ai | still up |
| 2021-06-01 | YCLuminate We make cancer care at home possible. · luminatemed.com | still up |
| 2021-01-01 | YCAlbedo Full-stack VLEO satellite missions · albedo.com | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | Bluetooth to Space · hubble.com | still up |
| 2019-01-01 | Unlocking the utility of genomics for the world. · voltalabs.com | still up |
| 2021-01-01 | YCRemora Carbon capture for vehicles · remoracarbon.com | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | Making all ships robots. · fleetzero.com | still up |
| 2020-06-01 | YCQuell Get fit fighting your way through a fantasy world. · playquell.com | acquired |
| 2016-06-01 | YCSeerslab We are providing AR technologies and contents to app developers · argear.io | gone |
| 2019-06-01 | Green Canopy NODE builds sustainable homes fast. · greencanopynode.com | still up |
| 2020-01-01 | YCTeleo Supervised Autonomous Heavy Equipment · teleo.ai | acquired |
| 2021-06-01 | YCVedaBio CRISPR powered Diagnostics with results in minutes. · vedabio.com | still up |
| 2021-06-01 | Turning space into a transportation layer for Earth · inversionspace.com | still up |
| 2018-06-01 | YCMytos Robotic human cell manufacturing · mytos.bio | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | YCWyvern High-res hyperspectral pictures of Earth from space · wyvern.space | still up |
| 2014-01-01 | Enabling li-ion batteries to charge ultra fast without compromising… · gbatteries.com | still up |
| 2022-06-01 | General Autonomy for Industrial Vehicles · polymathrobotics.com | still up |
| 2017-06-01 | YCAdvano Advano is a battery technology company that improve the longevity of… · advano.io | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | Multicolor lasers for ultrafast data transmission · enlightra.com | still up |
| 2020-06-01 | YCBlissway The tolling industry’s prime tech infrastructure · blissway.com | still up |
| 2025-01-01 | Software Enabled CNC Parts Supplier · forgeautomation.ca | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | Underwater robotic vehicles that collect battery metals responsibly · impossiblemetals.com | still up |
| 2016-06-01 | YCProxy Smart ring digital wallet · proxy.com | acquired |
| 2022-01-01 | YCSeabound Carbon capture equipment for ships · seabound.co | still up |
| 2017-06-01 | YCAirthium Decarbonized heat and power cheaper than fossil fuels · airthium.com | still up |
| 2015-06-01 | YCNebia Nebia is a breakthrough shower system, based on a premium experience,… · nebia.com | acquired |
| 2021-06-01 | Automated e2e screenshot testing without writing or maintaining tests · meticulous.ai | still up |
| 2026-01-01 | YCNdea Building AGI that can innovate. · ndea.com | still up |
| 2019-06-01 | Last-mile delivery for satellites. · epic-aerospace.com | still up |
| 2018-06-01 | We build artificial intelligence processors inspired by the brain. · rain-neuromorphics.com | acquired |
| 2023-06-01 | Autonomous surgical robots · andromedasurgical.com | still up |
| 2024-06-01 | Data centers in space · starcloud.com | still up |
| 2024-01-01 | YCYondu Robots to Automate Fulfillment · yondu.ai | still up |
| 2025-01-01 | Reusable Satellites · reditus.space | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | YCAirMyne Building systems to remove carbon dioxide from air at industrial scale · airmyne.com | still up |
| 2021-06-01 | Vertical takeoff and landing aircraft for major airlines · odysaviation.com | still up |
| 2021-01-01 | We make satellites to image everywhere on Earth, every 15 minutes · albaorbital.com | still up |
| 2016-06-01 | Testing & treatment at home, in minutes, for chronic & acute disease · cliphealth.com | gone |
| 2022-01-01 | We Mine Asteroids · astroforge.io | still up |
| 2019-06-01 | YCLumineye X-ray Vision for First Responders · lumineye.com | gone |
| 2021-01-01 | Desktop DNA Printer. The Nespresso Machine for DNA. · kilobaser.com | still up |
| 2019-06-01 | YCZergo We make a urine test that helps women get pregnant. · zergo.com | gone |
| 2020-06-01 | A small sticker that monitors blood pressure continuously · venavitals.com | still up |
| 2022-01-01 | IndustrialNext builds the AI brain for manufacturing –… · industrialnext.ai | still up |
| 2021-06-01 | Portable cryoablation to prevent cervical cancer · ananya.health | still up |
| 2025-01-01 | AI performance monitoring for factory workers · optifye.ai | still up |
| 2025-09-01 | The Modular Interceptor Platform · wardstone.us | still up |
| 2026-06-01 | Autonomous construction on Earth and beyond · cosmicrobotics.com | still up |
| 2026-06-01 | YCEdgerun Military exoskeletons · edgerun.com | still up |
| 2026-01-01 | The Networking Layer of AI · pirislabs.io | still up |
| 2025-06-01 | Tiny Edge AI For Tiny Devices · cactuscompute.com | still up |
| 2019-01-01 | We produce cancer-curing materials used in nuclear medicine. · atomicalchemy.us | acquired |
How this compares
Y Combinator reports its own outcomes, including acquisitions. The other two are judged by asking the domain, so they are not measured the same way and are never averaged together.
Older launches have had longer to die, so this slope is expected. A year that broke it would mean something is wrong with the checking.
Matched on whole words in the title and description, so a launch can fall into two categories and plenty fall into none.
The register re-probes every domain it holds. Some that answered last month stop answering. We send that list — what went quiet, and what it was — once a month. Nothing else.
How this was made. Show HN entries are every post from 2021 to 2023 with at least five points that linked to its own domain; code hosts and free hosting are excluded, because a repository outlives the effort behind it. Product Hunt entries needed 100 votes — a far higher bar, so they are the promoted top slice rather than a like-for-like sample. Both are judged by asking the domain whether it still answers: gone means it no longer resolves, refuses the connection, serves a parking page, or says plainly that it shut down. An HTTP error is not counted as gone — a server answering 404 is one somebody still pays for, and an audit of 25 gone-calls found two such sites alive with only a moved homepage. Y Combinator entries use the status YC publishes itself, which is why only those can say acquired. Squatted domains — a lapsed name now serving somebody else's site — are not detected, so these figures run slightly low.