Conifer YC Application
San Francisco
Conifer went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2026 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
- Summer 2026
- Industry
- B2B
- Location
- San Francisco
- Team size
- 4
- Status
- Active
- Launched
- 2026
Founders
Charles MuehlbergerFounder/CTO
Michael JeffordsFounder/CGO
What Conifer does
There are thousands of models, providers, and harnesses, each with its own pricing and strengths, leaving an overwhelming number of choices when it comes to managing token spend and intelligence. Conifer uses intelligent routing and orchestration logic to handle the full path of each query: model selection, provider choice, and cache management. It all runs inside your existing harness, so tools like Claude Code and Codex work without changing your setup. By centralizing where inference occurs, Conifer lets companies save on their inference bill while leaving teams free to focus on what they are building.
Conifer's YC application, reconstructed
Y Combinator application
Conifer, Summer 2026 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.
- Founders2
- Company7
- Progress7
- Idea4
- Equity3
- Curious2
- Batch Preference1
Company
Conifer
Least-cost routing to cut 70%+ AI token spend.
We built Conifer to help AI/ML teams stop wasting money on inference. There are thousands of LLMs, providers, and deployment harnesses, and every one has different strengths, latency, and pricing. Our system plugs into your existing harness, then automatically routes queries through the cheapest/best model (or cached output) for each task - you don't have to change your tooling or rewrite code. Teams use Conifer to cut their inference and token bills by 70% or more with zero disruption to their workflow.
We live and work in San Francisco, CA. The company would remain based here after YC.
San Francisco has the best density of AI tooling startups, developer users, and ML infrastructure talent. Our customers and partners are here, and the ecosystem lets us move faster.
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.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this the real Conifer YC application?
No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from Conifer's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like Conifer would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.
What YC batch was Conifer in?
Conifer was part of the Y Combinator Summer 2026 batch.
Who founded Conifer?
Conifer was founded by Charles Muehlberger, Michael Jeffords.
What does Conifer do?
Least cost routing system to reduce 70%+ token spend
How do I read the full reconstructed application?
Create a free Round Funded account. The full 26-answer version of Conifer's application, and every other YC batch, is in YC Insights.
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