ceo @walterindustry (yc p26) // prev cooking in fine dining kitchens, @zfellows @cdtm_munich
San Francisco
Joined December 2024
- Tweets278
- Following375
- Followers326
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nikolas retweeted
Met a German founder this week and asked him if all the stories one reads about the challenges of startups in Germany are exaggerated. "No, they're understated." Proceeded to describe spending a full day having a 90-page investment contract read to him (mandatory under German law; § 13 BeurkG) by a notary that then charged €30,000. That was for his first company. His second company, needless to say, was not incorporated in Germany.
nikolas retweeted
Waiting for coding agents breaks focus. It totally takes you out of your flow and you're left with nothing to do but wait.
Coding agents run 4x faster in Aster. GLM 5.2 finishes in:
- 1 min vs 4 mins.
- 311tps vs 59tps
Run coding agents on Aster today. We put the aster in faster.
nikolas retweeted
Augustus has raised 180M$ on 1B$ to build the Global Dollar Bank.
The dollar is the best product in the history of the world - with infinite global demand.
But International Fintechs and non-US banks are left with two unsatisfying options to access it: Either they build on legacy clearing banks that are slow and unreliable, or they interface with middleware providers that don’t move and hold dollars directly, but themselves rely on underlying legacy banks.
@augustus_bank collapses this stack by combining two things: direct dollar access and Marble, our proprietary bank core, built around intelligence and made of code.
If you’re looking to build on the dollar - message me directly or check us out at augustus.com.
nikolas retweeted
Introducing Aster Inference -- The world's fastest inference API created by AI research agents
We serve the world's fastest inference on GPU:
- OpenAI's gpt-oss-120b @ 644 tps
- Z.ai's GLM 5.2 @ 281 tps
At Aster, we're automating open-ended research, and we use inference optimization as a task to benchmark our agents against. We're creating a product out of the inference discoveries made from our system.
As our agents discover more, we plan to further improve our inference product and ship new, SOTA AI products.
🐐🐐
I’m glad @cory tweeted today about the first investor in @Etched he doesn’t get enough recognition for how talented he is, Cory has been the first investor in some of the fastest growing companies such as @whop @owner , mark my words over the next few years you will see how @cory is the best investor of our generation
nikolas retweeted
We're excited to announce a $4M Seed round led by @GameChangersVC, with support from incredible investors including @scooterbraun, @GuyOseary, @stellation, @SignalFire, @MaCVentureCap, and others.
A few years ago, while hosting community events and testing early products, my co-founders @WeilynChong, @NathanAhn, and I noticed a consistent pattern.
After every event, people asked the same questions:
Where are the photos? Who captured that moment? How do I reconnect with the people I met?
fortune.com/2026/06/16/photo…
@a16z 's Take on Why the World Still Runs on @SAP:
Any major legacy system of record captures critical data across the businesses that use it. The business has customized it and built a set of specific procedures and roles on top of it, much of which is not actually documented anywhere.
That observation is not a big surprise, but what stood out to me is their view on what the endgame will look like:
We think legacy systems will mostly persist, but they'll stop being the surface area where work happens. ERPs, CRMs, and ITSM suites are too embedded to be ripped out on a typical software cadence; they evolve slowly and remain systems of record.
What will change is the user-facing "system of action" that sits on top: AI will become the default interface for discovering how the system works, executing workflows across it, and shipping small, modern experiences that bypass legacy UI altogether. In other words, the bridge becomes the highway.
Super interesting to hear @SAP CTO @pheartig talk about agent mining.
The points he made - such as starting off with the human in the loop, and the agency of agents increasing over time through the data flywheel (meaning agents soaking up context and anomalies in use cases) - are exactly what we derived from first principles with our partners.
Spot on that computer use and LLMs understanding UI is a superpower when it comes to automating parts of legacy systems where endpoints aren't available.
Link to the full podcast, which is co-hosted by @eladgil and @saranormous in the comments.
thanks for having me @davj
In many cases, the best AI companies aren't replacing software. They're giving it a login.
Every software company for years has made the same pitch to manufacturers: clean APIs, migrate your stack, rip out your ERP
It rarely works well.
The ERP is the company brain. Years of data.
You can't rip it out any more than you can rip out someone's memory
@nikolas_keller & Co-Founder @lukaspostulka figured out the obvious thing that everyone missed
Stop trying to replace the software.
Give an AI employee a login instead.
@walterindustry signs into SAP, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Oracle the way a new hire would
Ready to go from day 1.
Works out of Teams and email like the rest of the team.
Reads orders. Enters them. Places supplier POs. Catches pricing errors before they ship...
Not another dashboard.
Not another integration project.
Not another rip and replace.
A purchase order that used to take 15 minutes now takes a few seconds.
The insight came from a $ 100M+ manufacturer who had a full-time employee doing nothing but typing purchase orders into an ERP
Not because the work was valuable. Because the software demanded it.
With Walter, your software stays. The manual work disappears.
🎙️ @nikolas_keller, CEO & Co-Founder of @walterindustry on @fondocom @thestartpod
Huge thanks to @UseCorgi for making this episode possible!
nikolas retweeted
Walter (@walterindustry) is an AI employee for the manufacturing back office. He logs into the same legacy ERP a factory already runs just like a human would, and takes over the manual work no one ever wanted to do.
Congrats on the launch, @nikolas_keller, @lukaspostulka!
ycombinator.com/launches/Qdh…
nikolas retweeted
Y Combinator @ycombinator Launches of the Week:
(This round-up is for informational purposes only, and in order of the date/time of the launch, from earliest to latest.)
1) Sazabi @sazabi: Founded by Sherwood Callaway @shcallaway, Sazabi is the AI-native observability platform for fast-moving engineering teams. Know More At: sazabi.com
2) Parrot: Founded by Phillip Baek and Liam McBride, Parrot is an AI-native operating system for auto shops. Know More At: useparrot.com
3) AICE: Founded by Gregoire Chomette and Rémi Bouteiller, AICE is building the next generation of underwater defense systems. Know More At: aicepower.com
4) Playabl.ai @Playabl_ai: Founded by Hamza Al-Ali @hamzawy998, Omar Jarrah, and Sanad Kiswani, Playabl is the TikTok for user-generated games, where anyone can play, create, publish, and monetize games. Know More At: playabl.ai
5) Infera: Founded by Chloe Sow and Troy Zhang, Infera helps you control lab instruments with natural language. Know More At: infera.bio
6) Walter @walterindustry: Founded by Nikolas Keller @nikolas_keller and Lukas Postulka, Walter is an AI employee for manufacturing operations. Know More At: walter.one
Post: menlotimes.com/post/y-combin…
Source: ycombinator.com/launches
nikolas retweeted
Finding a startup idea is usually a mix of breadth-first and depth-first search.
You look at a bunch of branches, then force yourself to go deep on the one that seems most promising. Repeat until something pulls you in.
Tokenmaxxing helps with the breadth-first part. But the hard part is still building enough conviction to go depth-first for a while.
16 days until @ycombinator Demo day, my learnings so far:
1. Don't be afraid to approach big companies. The majority of our first customers have $100M+ in revenue. Enterprises are now actively seeking AI solutions. @aroraharshita33 and @bradflora spoke about this in their Request for Startups.
2. Pivoting and staying flexible with what the market wants is GREAT. Before YC, I worried about being perceived as unfocused if I switched direction. What actually matters is following the money. If customers pay more for Product X, listen to them. Don't cling to what you think is the right product.
3. Share your journey! @lukaspostulka and I started the company in March 2026, going all in and iterating extremely fast. I'll be sharing more of the ups and downs going forward.
