Papaya

Active · Continuously improve the quality of your AI agents.

YC F26

Website YC profile

Why it ranks

How the rank works

7signal of 100 · rising 7

went through YCProgram · this site+4
team of 3Team size · YC's directory+3.1

A sum of public facts, not a judgement and not investment advice.

Competitors

DownlinkShared: continuously improve, latencyYC W24San FranciscoStartup →AI

NessieShared: trace nobody, nobody read, agentYC F25San FranciscoStartup →AI

Carrot LabsShared: pull request, aiops, quietlyYC W26San FranciscoStartup →AI

Model Share AIShared: continuously improveAntler 2022USStartup →AI

GitStartShared: pull request, quality, engineerYC S19San FranciscoStartup →

Companies closest to Papaya
Company	Category	Status	Program
DownlinkShared: continuously improve, latencyYC W24ActiveAI, Devtools	AI, Devtools	Active	YCW24
NessieShared: trace nobody, nobody read, agentYC F25ActiveAI	AI	Active	YCF25
Carrot LabsShared: pull request, aiops, quietlyYC W26ActiveAI	AI	Active	YCW26
Model Share AIShared: continuously improveAntler 2022Not statedAI	AI	Not stated	Antler2022
GitStartShared: pull request, quality, engineerYC S19 +1ActiveAI, Devtools	AI, Devtools	Active	YC +1S19

Adjacent

Other

Quality of Life LabsShared: improve qualityAntler 2022KoreaStartup →AI

ThirdBrain LabsShared: continuously improve, production, directlyspeedrun SR006San FranciscoStartup →AI

SlikShared: continuously improvePlug and PlayUnited StatesStartup →Developer toolsAcquired

Ribbon HealthShared: continuously improve, quality, costYC S17New York CityStartup →Developer tools

LogisticsOSShared: optimization engine, productionYC W21OntarioStartup →

Companies next to Papaya
Company	Category	Status	Program
Quality of Life LabsShared: improve qualityAntler 2022Not statedOther	Other	Not stated	Antler2022
ThirdBrain LabsShared: continuously improve, production, directlyspeedrun SR006Not statedAI	AI	Not stated	speedrunSR006
SlikShared: continuously improvePlug and Play Not statedAI	AI	Not stated	Plug and Play
Ribbon HealthShared: continuously improve, quality, costYC S17AcquiredDevtools	Devtools	Acquired	YCS17
LogisticsOSShared: optimization engine, productionYC W21ActiveDevtools	Devtools	Active	YCW21

Also from F26 in AI

All of F26

AIAlkera AIReliable and safe data engineering and data science agentsYC F26San FranciscoStartup →AI

ByteAskThe AI coding agent for C and C++YC F26San FranciscoStartup →AI

MirrorsFix recurring AI agent mistakes with real-time guidanceYC F26San FranciscoStartup →AI

Plover LabsEnable enterprises to ship agent code without human reviewYC F26San FranciscoStartup →AI

Reason MachinesReason is the AI teammate for work and code.YC F26San FranciscoStartup →AI

RysticTrain models and test agents in high-fidelity simulated environmentsYC F26San FranciscoStartup →

Company	Category	Status
Alkera AIReliable and safe data engineering and data science agentsteam of 3ActiveAI, Data, Devtools	AI, Data, Devtools	Active
ByteAskThe AI coding agent for C and C++team of 2ActiveAI, Devtools	AI, Devtools	Active
MirrorsFix recurring AI agent mistakes with real-time guidanceteam of 2ActiveAI, Devtools	AI, Devtools	Active
Plover LabsEnable enterprises to ship agent code without human reviewteam of 2ActiveAI, Devtools	AI, Devtools	Active
Reason MachinesReason is the AI teammate for work and code.team of 2hiringActiveAI, Devtools	AI, Devtools	Active
RysticTrain models and test agents in high-fidelity simulated environmentsteam of 2ActiveAI, Devtools	AI, Devtools	Active

Founders

Macy ModyFounder/CEO
Niyaz PuzhikkunnathFounder/CPO
Faiz VadakkumpadathFounder

About Papaya

Papaya is the optimization engine for AI agents. Engineers don't have time to continually improve the agents they've shipped, the context bloat, overly chatty subagents, and broken tool calls sit in production traces nobody reads, quietly hurting agent efficiency. With Papaya they connect their agent directly via SDK, get actionable recommendations on how to improve quality, latency, and cost, and the ones they approve are pushed to production as pull requests. Papaya runs 200+ research-backed analyses across context, prompts, prompt caching, subagents, and tool calls. Every recommendation is ranked by impact and comes with the production runs that produced it, typically a 20%+ quality improvement on the first workflow analysis.

YC batch: F26 · Fall 2026
Status, per YC: Active
Category: AI, Developer tools
Team size: 3
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
Founded: 2026
Checked: 13h ago

YC tags: AIOps, Developer Tools, B2B, Enterprise Software, AI