Orthogonal
Winter 2026 NewAgentic Payments for APIs
APIs weren't built for agents. Orthogonal fixes that. We enable agentic payments so any agent can instantly discover, access, and pay for hundreds of APIs. No subscriptions, no sales calls, just pay per use. API providers list once and get paid every time an agent calls their API.
AI Investor Summary
Orthogonal is building an agentic payments infrastructure for APIs, enabling AI agents to seamlessly discover, access, and pay for services on a pay-per-use basis. Led by a highly technical team from Meta and Google, they are well-positioned to capitalize on the rapidly expanding AI agent market by solving a key friction point for developers and API providers.
Key Highlights
- ● Exceptional founding team with strong Big Tech and top university backgrounds.
- ● Addresses a critical and growing need in the agentic AI and API economy.
- ● Innovative 'pay-per-use' model for API access, reducing friction for developers.
Risk Factors
- ● Execution risk in building a robust and scalable payments infrastructure for diverse APIs.
- ● Achieving critical mass of both API providers and agent developers to create a strong network effect.
- ● Potential for competition from existing API gateway providers or new entrants focused on agentic workflows.
Founders
Christian Pickett is the co-founder of Orthogonal, a Y Combinator startup focused on building AI-powered tools for software development. Prior to Orthogonal, he held engineering roles at prominent tech companies, contributing to the development of large-scale systems. His expertise lies in software engineering and AI, with a focus on improving developer productivity.
Bera Sogut is a co-founder of Orthogonal, a Y Combinator startup focused on building a new generation of developer tools. Prior to Orthogonal, Sogut has a background in software engineering and has worked on complex systems. He is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University.
Score Breakdown
Strong technical team with excellent pedigrees from Meta and Google, both holding Master's degrees from top-tier CS programs (Berkeley and CMU). Deep software engineering and AI expertise. Founder-market fit is implied by their focus on developer tools and AI agents, a rapidly growing area. No previous exits mentioned, but the foundational experience is exceptional. [Boost +1: Founder from Google; Founder from Google]
Large addressable market in the rapidly growing API economy, especially as AI agents become more prevalent. The 'pay-per-use' model for API access directly addresses a friction point for agent developers and API providers. Timing is excellent with the explosion of LLMs and agentic workflows. Competitive landscape is emerging, but Orthogonal's agent-centric approach offers differentiation. Regulatory tailwinds for API standardization and data access could be beneficial, while data privacy regulations could be a headwind.
Product shows promise in solving a real pain point for agent developers by abstracting away complex payment and access mechanisms for APIs. Technical differentiation lies in building an 'agentic payments' layer. Defensibility could come from network effects as more API providers and agents join the platform. UX quality is likely still in early stages, and platform potential is high if they can become the de facto standard for agent API payments. The 'OrthAlign' mention in news is a bit confusing and might be unrelated, or indicate broader R&D.
Early stage with limited public traction metrics. Partnerships with Scrapegraphai and mentions of 'Creator Discovery API' suggest early adoption and validation. Investor interest is implied by YC acceptance. Revenue and user growth rates are not yet disclosed. Press coverage is positive but nascent. [Boost +2: Tier-1 VC: accel; Tier-1 VC: accel]
News
Orthogonal is reimagining API discovery and consumption for AI agents by leveraging the x402 protocol for direct, pay-per-request payments, enabling agents to autonomously discover, pay for, and use APIs.
Orthogonal has partnered with influencers.club to make their API for 340 million creator profiles available to AI agents.
Orthogonal has partnered with ScrapeGraphAI to create an API marketplace designed for AI agents, enabling natural language discovery, automatic payment via x402, and single-request execution.
This paper introduces OrthAlign, a method for multi-objective alignment in LLMs that uses orthogonal subspace decomposition to resolve gradient-level conflicts, achieving significant improvements in helpfulness, harmlessness, and truthfulness.
Orthogonal highlights its partnership with Riveter, a Y Combinator-backed platform that offers an API for web scraping and data extraction, simplifying infrastructure management for AI agents.
Orthogonal announces a partnership with Nyne.ai, integrating Nyne's people and business data platform to provide AI agents with API access to enterprise-grade identity, enrichment, and intent data.
Orthogonal has partnered with influencers.club to offer an API for discovering and enriching 340 million creator profiles across various platforms for AI agents.
Orthogonal has partnered with influencers.club to provide an API with 340 million creator profiles, enabling creator discovery and enrichment for companies and AI agents.
Orthogonal is a seed company founded in 1993, operating as a provider of a unified API platform for accessing various data sources, and has raised $500K in funding.
Orthogonal has partnered with ScrapeGraphAI to create an API marketplace for AI agents, enabling natural language discovery, automatic payment via x402, and one-call execution.
Orthogonal has partnered with Crustdata to provide real-time B2B data for AI agents, enabling enriched company and person data through their API.
Orthogonal has partnered with Fundable to offer real-time startup and investor data for AI agents, facilitating deal sourcing and investor research.
Orthogonal has raised a total of $500K from 1 Seed round on Jan 01, 2026 from Y Combinator.
Quick Info
- Batch
- Winter 2026
- Team Size
- 2
- Location
- Unspecified
- Founders
- 2
- Scraped
- 4/10/2026