You asked about Hard Tech
1,902 people built something like it. 261 are gone.
That is 15% 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
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.