Hlabs YC Application

Winter 2026Active

Hlabs went through Y Combinator in the Winter 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: Winter 2026
Industry: Industrials
Team size: 1
Status: Active
Launched: 2025

Founders

Paul HetheringtonFounder

What Hlabs does

HLabs is making an industrial supply chain for building robots in the USA including electronics and actuators, with a focus on in-house manufacturing. Robotics is going to be one of the largest industries the world has ever seen. Teams have to buy what they can from overseas and then build everything else in house just to get something to move. HLabs is producing a plug and play set of robotic primitives to accelerate the early development and then working with larger scale production robots for bespoke designs. Early customers span across household robotics, humanoids, robot arms, quadrupeds, and defense. Hlabs is founded by Paul, a second time YC founder who also participated in the W21 batch with Mystic. He ran Mystic as CEO for 6 years.

Hlabs's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Hlabs, Winter 2026 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

HLabs

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

US-Made Parts for Robots

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

We build a set of plug and play robotic parts made in the US - electronics, actuators, and components - for teams building robots. Our goal is to replace the costly, slow, and overseas-dependent part of the supply chain with parts that get robots moving faster and at scale. We focus both on early-stage development kits and on supplying custom parts for larger, bespoke robot builds.

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

I'm based in San Francisco now and the company will remain here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco has the right ecosystem for robotics startups and manufacturing partners that support our mission to build US-made robotics components. It also lets us stay connected to early customers and industry networks.

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 Hlabs YC application?

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