Aemon
YC W26 · Active · The Forward-Deployed AI Research Engineer
Competitors
| Company | Category | Status | Program |
|---|---|---|---|
 AI TheresaShared: forward deployed, engineerNot statedAI | AI | Not stated | SPC2026 |
 HessianShared: forward deployed, engineeringActiveAI | AI | Active | YCX26 |
 DeepMindnot in a program hereShared: google deepmind, researchElsewhereOther | Other | Elsewhere |
Adjacent
| Company | Category | Status | Program |
|---|---|---|---|
 MarkerShared: forward deployed, engineerActiveAI | AI | Active | YCS26 |
 AntinuousShared: autonomous research, compute, testActiveAI | AI | Active | YCX26 |
 EkpaShared: autonomous researchActiveAI | AI | Active | YCS26 |
 Khotan (formerly Pollinate)Shared: forward deployed, engineerActiveOther | Other | Active | YCW26 |
 HumworkShared: human expert, engineerActiveAI, Devtools | AI, Devtools | Active | YCX26 |
Also from W26 in AI
All of W26| Company | Category | Status |
|---|---|---|
 /dev/fast/dev/fast is the AI-native code forgeActiveAI, Devtools | AI, Devtools | Active |
 10x ScienceThe AI-native platform for next-generation protein characterization.ActiveAI | AI | Active |
 21stUI building blocks for the agentic internetActiveAI, Devtools | AI, Devtools | Active |
 Agentic FabriqThe control plane for AI agents.ActiveAI | AI | Active |
 Alt-XBuilding the best venue for private markets exposure.ActiveAI, Data | AI, Data | Active |
 AnchorheadEvals for frontier research agentsActiveAI, Devtools | AI, Devtools | Active |
Founders
- Richard ZhouFounder/CEO
- Ray XuFounder/CTO
About Aemon
Aemon is the first autonomous research engineer that delivers state-of-the-art solutions to your engineering problems. It generates, tests, and evolves thousands of approaches at machine speed to discover optimal solutions beyond what human experts can find. Aemon already set a new world record on an NP-hard math optimization problem with <$10 of compute, beating the previous record set by Google DeepMind in 2025. Ray and Richard (twin brothers) dropped out of UWaterloo and UIUC to build Aemon. They published at top AI conferences like ICLR and EMNLP before turning 20.
- YC batch
- W26 · Winter 2026
- Status, per YC
- Active
- Category
- AI, Developer tools
- Team size
- 3
- Location
- San Francisco, CA, USA
- Founded
- 2025
- Checked
- 31m ago
Aemon: questions
Which YC batch was Aemon in?
Aemon was in Y Combinator's Winter 2026 batch (W26).
Is Aemon still active?
Y Combinator lists Aemon as active.
Who founded Aemon?
Aemon's founders, as listed on its YC page: Richard Zhou (Founder/CEO), Ray Xu (Founder/CTO).
Where is Aemon based?
Aemon lists San Francisco, CA, USA as its location on YC's directory.
Sources: each program's public company list, read twice a week. Not affiliated with Y Combinator or any other program. Logos via logo.dev; trademarks belong to their owners.