Cranston AI YC Application

Fall 2025Active

Cranston AI went through Y Combinator in the Fall 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: Fall 2025
Industry: B2BFinance and Accounting
Team size: 2
Status: Active
Launched: 2025

Founders

Sean O'BannonFounder
Max MinskerFounder

What Cranston AI does

Cranston is a full stack AI accounting firm automating the $900b market for accounting labor. Our software automates reconciliation, tax compliance and financial analysis for startups & SMBs. We pull in context from all your company's apps & data, connect to existing systems of record and handle repetitive accounting work. Our team is deep in the accounting space. Sean spent 5 years building an ERP after dropping out of Stanford and Max spent 5 years building an accounting firm that did every accounting workflow you can imagine on top of ERPs.

Cranston AI's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Cranston AI, Fall 2025 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Cranston AI

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Full Stack AI Accounting Firm

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

We have built software that automates accounting workflows like reconciliation, tax compliance, and financial analysis for startups and SMBs. Our system connects to all company apps and data, draws context from them, and plugs into existing ERPs to replace manual accounting labor.

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

We live in San Francisco and the company will remain based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco has the best access to startups and accounting experts we need to build and refine our product. It's where we are deeply embedded in the accounting space already.

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 Cranston AI YC application?

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