Nominal, a company that makes software for engineering and testing complex hardware, said on Nov. 9, 2026 that it raised a $240 million Series C at a $3 billion valuation. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round and Insight Partners co-led it, according to Nominal's press release.
Its previous announced valuation was $1 billion. In a blog post dated March 5, 2026, Nominal said it had "raised an additional $80 million at a valuation of $1 billion," in a round led by Founders Fund. TechCrunch reported that the new round "triples its valuation" and described Nominal as a four-year-old, Austin-based startup. TechCrunch described the March round as a $155 million Series B extension at a $1 billion valuation; Nominal's own post gives $80 million.
What Nominal does
The release says Nominal serves teams building aircraft, satellites, autonomous systems, nuclear reactors, smart factories and other complex machines.
The company calls itself "the Hardware Intelligence Platform." According to the release, the platform connects hardware data with the engineering context behind it, and AI agents can work from that same foundation.
Nominal Analyst is "the company's first AI agent," the release says. It investigates engineering data and runs complex analyses, "with answers traceable to the underlying evidence." Engineers keep control of the decisions, reviews and approvals that matter.
The release says Nominal runs in cloud deployments, on-premises infrastructure, air-gapped environments and edge devices. A product called Nominal for Developers gives engineers access through SQL, APIs and MCP. Engineers can use it to build their own applications and agents.
In a blog post published with the round, Nominal describes its platform as four layers: Connected Control, Data Infrastructure, Intelligence Layer and Engineering Applications. "This round turns that foundation into the intelligence platform engineers build on," the post says.
What the $240 million is for
The release says the funding "will support deeper products for engineers and engineering enterprises." Nominal is developing agents and applications for work across a machine's lifecycle, "from requirements verification and planning to scheduling and fleet health."
The company also plans to expand into new industries and regions, "including through strategic acquisitions." The release names two deals from this year. Nominal acquired Fid Labs, whose team is developing Nominal's agents, and Pull Systems, which extends the platform into automotive.
Who is investing
Besides Lightspeed and Insight Partners, the release lists Lux Capital, Sequoia, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Avenir, Salesforce Ventures, M13, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Red Glass Ventures, PSP Growth and Deployment Capital as other major investors.
"General-purpose AI models are becoming widely available, but they don't carry an industry's proprietary data, workflows, and institutional knowledge," Crissy Costa Behrens, a managing director at Insight Partners, said in the release.
Cameron McCord, Nominal's co-founder and CEO, said: "Hardware engineering is getting its AI moment, with real operational value that goes far beyond making existing workflows faster." He added: "Engineers stay in command, with purpose-built AI helping them do their best work."
TechCrunch reported that McCord is a former U.S. Navy submarine officer and an Anduril alum. It also named Anduril, the defense company co-founded by Founders Fund's Trae Stephens, as one of Nominal's key customers.
Customers and results
More than 80 commercial and government organizations use Nominal, including five of the seven largest defense contractors, according to the release. In its March post, Nominal had said that "four of the five largest defense contractors in the world now run on Nominal" and that more than sixty organizations trusted it. The March post also said revenue had grown 7x and the team had more than tripled to 135 people in the 10 months after its Series B.
The release gives results from three customers:
- At Anduril Industries, more than 300 engineers rely on Nominal. Analysis that once took five to six hours now happens in near real time.
- At HII, Nominal reduced certain analysis tasks from hours to minutes and cut some production test steps by approximately half.
- Hermeus reduced the time between uploading data and reviewing it by 80% while designing and building its Quarterhorse Mk 1 aircraft in seven months.
The Air Force STRATFI award
In an Oct. 26, 2026 post, Nominal said it was selected for a Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI), an AFWERX program. The package totals $71.2 million: $41.2 million of government funding and $30 million of private matching, across Air Force and Navy programs. Those include the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program, AFWERX, the Air Force Test Pilot School and the Navy's Program Executive Office for Unmanned Aviation and Strike Weapons.
The post says the award funds Nominal's tools for capturing, organizing and analyzing aircraft test and telemetry data during CCA development and flight test. The November release says the award supports CCA capability development.
Why it matters
This round triples the price investors put on Nominal in eight months and adds $240 million to fund agents for the full life of a machine, from requirements verification to fleet health. It also gives Nominal money for acquisitions, after two this year that brought in the team building its agents and a move into automotive.
For engineering teams at defense contractors and other hardware makers, the release says the agents work from the same data and context engineers use, with answers they can trace back to the evidence, and the software can run on-premises or in air-gapped environments.
Sources
- Nominal press release via GlobeNewswire, Nov. 9, 2026
- Nominal blog: We raised $240M to build the intelligence platform for hardware, Nov. 9, 2026
- Nominal blog: We raised $80M to make hardware teams AI-ready, March 5, 2026
- Nominal blog: STRATFI selection, Oct. 26, 2026
- TechCrunch: AI hardware startup Nominal triples valuation to $3B in 8 months, Nov. 9, 2026
