YC Summer 2026 RFS Signals Hard-Tech Pivot — Agriculture Robots, Counter-Drone Defense, Lunar Manufacturing

r/startups·medium signal

Y Combinator's Summer 2026 Requests for Startups lists 15 categories, with 8 requiring hardware or significant capital: agriculture robots, counter-drone defense, space inference chips, lunar manufacturing, and semiconductor supply chain software. CEO Garry Tan's framing — 'software is now the substrate, not the moat' — signals the accelerator that built its reputation on SaaS now believes billion-dollar outcomes will come from AI applied to physical, regulated industries.