Onyx
YC W24San Francisco, US · Founded 2023 · 20 employees · Hiring · 3 known investors
Onyx is an open-source application platform for large language models that enables teams to leverage any LLM while maintaining data transparency and customization. The platform integrates internet search, internal knowledge connectors, code execution, and model context protocol integrations to provide enterprise and startup teams with flexible AI deployment options.
Also known as Danswer
AI & Machine LearningDeveloper ToolsEnterprise SoftwareFuture of WorkSaaSOpen SourceNLPEnterpriseSearchAIUnited States of AmericaAmerica / Canada
Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (W24)
Onyx was founded in 2023 by Yuhong Sun and Chris Weaver.
YS
Yuhong SuninCo-FounderYuhong Sun worked on machine learning and NLP applications, including transformer architectures for natural language-to-SQL and hybrid search systems, at Alation.
CW
Chris WeaverinCo-FounderChris Weaver was a top competitive League of Legends player in North America and previously worked as a team lead at Robinhood.
Investors · 3
Funding
SEC filings, press & company announcements- Undisclosed amountseed roundMar 2025
First Round Capital (lead), Khosla Ventures (lead)
Source ↗
Source: company announcements and press reports — follow each round's link for the claim.
Competitors · 10
by search overlap
Hugging Face522 shared keywordsHugging Face is a collaboration platform that hosts and provides access to machine learning models, datasets, and applications. It offers both open-source tools for the ML community and paid compute and enterprise solutions for teams building AI applications.
Vellum510 shared keywordsVellum builds AI development tools and platforms for teams building AI applications. The company focuses on helping customers navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape through products and expertise.
LLM Stats470 shared keywordsllm-stats.com provides open, reproducible evaluation and benchmarking infrastructure for large language models and AI systems. The platform aggregates 200+ benchmarks and enables performance comparisons across frontier AI models to support informed decision-making by researchers, enterprises, and model developers.
OpenRouter381 shared keywordsOpenRouter operates an AI gateway that allows developers to access and compare hundreds of language models from multiple providers in a single platform. The service eliminates vendor lock-in while offering improved pricing, uptime, and reliability for companies and developers.
DataCamp277 shared keywordsDataCamp is a learning platform for teams that teaches data and AI skills through hands-on coursework accessible via web browser and mobile app. It serves enterprise customers and development teams seeking to build technical capabilities.
Zapier262 shared keywordsZapier provides a platform for connecting AI models and agents to workflows and business applications, enabling teams to automate tasks across over 9,000 apps without coding. The platform serves enterprises, operations teams, and businesses of all sizes looking to deploy AI-driven automation for lead capture, customer support, employee onboarding, and other business processes.
Kilo258 shared keywordsKilo (Kilo Code) is an open-source, MIT-licensed AI coding agent that works across VS Code, JetBrains, CLI, and cloud, giving developers access to 500+ AI models at cost with no markup, plus support for bring-your-own-keys and local models. It also offers KiloClaw, a hosted always-on agent that connects to Telegram, Discord, or Slack to run shell commands, scheduled tasks, and workflows after the IDE closes.
Scale AI256 shared keywordsScale provides high-quality training data, model evaluations, and full-stack AI systems for enterprises and governments to build and deploy AI applications. The company supplies data annotation, RLHF, benchmarking, and red-teaming services for machine learning models.
Netezza247 shared keywordsIBM is a global technology company whose business spans enterprise software (including Red Hat, HashiCorp, and Confluent), IT infrastructure such as mainframes, servers, and storage, and IT consulting services. The company is also investing heavily in quantum computing and AI-based enterprise offerings, including its Lightwell open-source software security clearinghouse and the Anderon quantum wafer foundry.
Arena238 shared keywordsArena.ai is a platform for exploring and interacting with frontier AI models; user conversations may be shared with AI providers for research purposes.
Companies competing with Onyx for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
In the news
Frequently asked questions
- What does Onyx do?
- Onyx is an open-source application platform for large language models that enables teams to leverage any LLM while maintaining data transparency and customization. The platform integrates internet search, internal knowledge connectors, code execution, and model context protocol integrations to provide enterprise and startup teams with flexible AI deployment options.
- Who founded Onyx?
- Onyx was founded by Yuhong Sun, Chris Weaver in 2023.
- Who are Onyx's investors?
- Onyx's investors include Y Combinator, First Round Capital, Khosla Ventures.
- Where is Onyx headquartered?
- Onyx is headquartered in San Francisco, US.