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YCS26· AI· Data

Litmus

Evals for humans

ActiveChecked 18h ago
Batch
S26
Status, per YC
Active
Team size
3
HQ
New York City, NY
In S26231 companies, 88% AI

Founders

  • Shaivi RauFounder/CEO
  • Elena ZhaoFounder/CTO

Same space

About Litmus

Litmus is building the most accurate framework for evaluating and benchmarking human capability, starting with software. AI will compound small differences in human capability into increasingly large differences in what people can accomplish, while making existing static benchmarks obsolete. Software is already there: AI can hill-climb any output-based evaluation, while the ability to direct it is becoming the defining advantage. Litmus applies the same approach we already use for model evals to humans – creating world-like environments, and inspecting trajectory instead of just output. Every knowledge industry will soon face the same problem. We build Litmus to tell you what humans are capable of. We're already helping build frontier technical teams at Mercor, Composio, Neo Scholars, and more.

New York City, NY, USA

Litmus: questions

Which YC batch was Litmus in?

Litmus was in Y Combinator's Summer 2026 batch (S26).

Is Litmus still active?

Y Combinator lists Litmus as active.

Who founded Litmus?

Litmus's founders, as listed on its YC page: Shaivi Rau (Founder/CEO), Elena Zhao (Founder/CTO).

Where is Litmus based?

Litmus lists New York City, NY, USA as its location on YC's directory.

Not affiliated with Y Combinator. From YC's public directory. Logos via logo.dev; trademarks belong to their owners.

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