Grip YC Application

Summer 2026Active

Zürich

Grip went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2026 batch as a Industrials 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: IndustrialsManufacturing and Robotics
Location: Zürich
Team size: 4
Status: Active
Launched: 2026

Founders

Jonas GruetterFounder/CEO
Stanislaw PiaseckiFounder/CTO

What Grip does

Grip is a robotics company building intelligent robotic systems for waste and recycling. We are starting with organic waste, where removing contaminants from messy, constantly changing streams remains difficult and highly manual. Our technology combines learning-based manipulation and custom hardware to identify and pick objects, learning from real-world operating data, including every successful and failed grasp, to become more reliable and adaptable over time. This helps waste operators reduce manual sorting, recover more valuable material, lower contamination, and deploy automation flexibly across facilities. Over time, Grip aims to expand beyond organics and build the intelligent manipulation layer for trash in general, making waste processing and the circular economy more efficient and scalable.

Grip's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Grip, Summer 2026 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Grip

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Robots for waste manipulation

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

We make intelligent robotic systems for waste and recycling, starting with organic waste. Our robots use learning-based manipulation and custom hardware to pick out contaminants from messy waste streams - tasks that are still hard and manual with traditional automation. The robots continuously learn from their environment, getting better as they operate. We help waste operators automate sorting, reclaim more valuable material, and reduce contamination.

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

We are all in Zürich, Switzerland, and the company will stay based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

Zürich is a strong technical hub for robotics, and we have access to leading research, industrial partners, and waste facilities here. Staying in Zürich makes it easier to develop and iterate with real-world operators.

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 Grip YC application?

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