Business

horizontal.

Website
Founded 2026Origin source ↗Checked 2026-10-26

Overview

Every factory will be run by AI agents. Horizontal is building them.

Today, the work that keeps production moving is scattered across people, teams, and disconnected software. When plans change, materials run short, or quality issues appear, factory teams piece together the context and coordinate the response by hand.

Horizontal's AI agents take on that operational work inside the systems factories already use. They replan production around a disruption, investigate quality issues and coordinate order releases across teams and tools. Manufacturers start with one process and add agents over time, building toward a system that coordinates the factory end to end.

Factories are demanding environments for AI: every plant has its own systems and procedures, and every action must work in the context of real production. Our team combines mechanical engineering and shop-floor experience with a track record of building and deploying agentic AI in global industrial companies.

Horizontal connects the people, software and machines that run production.

Company description As recorded 2026-11-08
LinkedIn Team

Founders & team

Previously Horizontal.

Company history As recorded 2026-11-08

Niklas Marxer

Founder/CEO

Co-Founder & CEO of Horizontal (YC F26). Niklas is a mechanical engineer and was one of the first employees at askLio (YC S23), where he helped scale the company into one of the world's fastest-growing AI startups. Since then, he has worked on bringing agentic AI into more than 150 industrial companies worldwide. He combines a shop-floor understanding of manufacturing with first-hand experience scaling an AI company and deploying AI in complex industrial environments.

LinkedIn
Founder profile As recorded 2026-10-26
2team members reported
Source-reported As recorded 2026-10-26

Founded 2026 · Source

News & product activity

Sources & observations

Y Combinator

Profile depthverified profile
Website observationwebsite reachable
Last website check2026-11-11
Location · source statedSan Francisco, CA, USA
Pricing evidenceNo pricing page confirmed
Maturity: Not assessed · 2 of 6 areas documented

Source-based assessment · automated evidence rules

The retained text does not establish product availability or customer use.

Maturity is an evidence-based assessment, not a success rating. It may understate the current stage where evidence is limited. Coverage records documented areas, not a complete or independently audited company history.

  • Product overviewSource description Checked 2026-11-11
  • Product visualsNot documented
  • Founders & originsTeam information
  • Business model & pricingNot documented
  • Funding & ownershipNot documented
  • Dated milestonesNot documented
Stage definitions
independent websitesource corroborationreachable websitedescriptive evidencesourced peoplesourced founding year
startup.observe Directory coverage · Sources & method