AthenaHQ YC Application

Winter 2025Active

AthenaHQ went through Y Combinator in the Winter 2025 batch as a B2B company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.

YC batch: Winter 2025
Industry: B2BMarketing
Team size: 12
Status: Active
Launched: 2025

Founders

Andrew YanCo-Founder, CEO
Alan YaoCo-Founder

What AthenaHQ does

Make sure your brand doesn’t get left behind as search shifts from traditional SEO to generative AI search. AthenaHQ is an AI SEO platform for GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), helping brands show up in AI-generated answers across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and more. AI search is expected to overtake traditional search within the next few years. AthenaHQ fills the gap with a system to measure visibility, identify what AI engines cite and recommend, and help your team improve content and brand presence for AI-first discovery. Team of former product manager on Google Search's information acquisition team, Deepmind Generative Media team, and ChatGPT superusers.

AthenaHQ's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

AthenaHQ, Winter 2025 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

AthenaHQ

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

AI SEO for generative and answer engine search

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

We build an AI SEO platform that helps brands optimize for generative AI search engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. Our system measures brand visibility in AI-generated answers, shows what sources these engines reference, and recommends content improvements to increase AI-first discovery.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

We live in San Francisco, CA, and AthenaHQ is based here. We plan to remain here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where the team lives and where our core expertise is concentrated. It also gives us proximity to clients and AI/tech talent.

21 more answers in the full application

Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.

See full application

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the real AthenaHQ YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from AthenaHQ's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like AthenaHQ would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.