Nominal Raises $240M at a $3B Valuation, Led by Lightspeed

Nominal said on November 9 that it raised $240 million in a Series C at a $3 billion valuation, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and co-led by Insight Partners. That is triple the $1 billion valuation the company printed on March 5, when it raised an additional $80 million led by Founders Fund. The November release is datelined Los Angeles.

The numbers

• $240 million at a $3 billion valuation. Nominal's post and the GlobeNewswire release name Lightspeed as lead and Insight as co-lead. Other investors the company called out include Lux Capital, Sequoia, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Avenir, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and M13.
• More than 80 commercial and government organizations use Nominal, including five of the seven largest defense contractors, the company said. In the March 5 letter it said four of the five largest defense contractors were on the platform, along with more than 60 organizations.
• On March 5 the company said the new money was an additional $80 million at $1 billion, led by Founders Fund, with Sequoia, General Catalyst, Lux Capital, Red Glass, and Lightspeed participating. TechCrunch that day called the $80 million a Series B extension and said a $75 million Series B led by Sequoia in September brought the 10-month total to $155 million. SiliconANGLE described the March round as an $80 million Series B-2 and said the new valuation triples the $1 billion mark.
• On October 26 Nominal said it had been selected for a Strategic Funding Increase package totaling $71.2 million, of which $30 million is private matching capital and $41.2 million is government funding across Air Force and Navy programs, including Collaborative Combat Aircraft. The November 9 post shortens that to an Air Force STRATFI of $71.2 million. TechCrunch reported the October Air Force selection at $71.2 million and noted that STRATFI requires outside matching funds.

What it says customers do with it

Nominal calls itself a hardware intelligence platform. It connects test data with the engineering record around it, and it ships an agent, Nominal Analyst, that investigates that data with answers tied back to the underlying evidence. The company says the product runs in cloud, on-premises, air-gapped, and edge deployments.

The customer results in the November 9 post are the company's own. At Anduril, more than 300 engineers use Nominal, and analysis that once took five to six hours now happens in near real time, Nominal said. At HII, a pilot cut some analysis tasks from hours to minutes and cut some production test steps by about half. Hermeus cut the time between uploading data and reviewing it by 80% while building its Quarterhorse Mk 1 in seven months. SiliconANGLE named the same three customers.

"Hardware engineering is getting its AI moment, with real operational value that goes far beyond making existing workflows faster."

Cameron McCord, Nominal co-founder and CEO, in the November 9 post

Salesforce Ventures, which is in the round, named the founders as Cameron McCord, Bryce Strauss, and Jason Hoch. TechCrunch described McCord as a former U.S. Navy submarine officer and an Anduril alum, and said Anduril co-founder Trae Stephens led the March Founders Fund round as a preemptive deal, which McCord confirmed to TechCrunch. The company's March letter names Founders Fund as the lead and does not name Stephens.

Where the money goes

Nominal said the round will fund deeper products for engineers, including agents for requirements, planning, scheduling, and fleet health, plus expansion into new industries and regions. It also said expansion includes acquisitions. This year it bought Fid Labs, whose team is building the agents, and Pull Systems, which takes the platform into automotive.

The March letter said the company then had 135 people in Austin, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, and London, and that revenue had grown 7x in the prior 10 months. That headcount and the revenue multiple are the company's March figures, not a filing.

What we are watching

The $240 million, the $3 billion valuation, and the March $1 billion mark come from Nominal's posts. Counsel has not, in the materials above, confirmed the round the way outside lawyers sometimes do. The Anduril timing claim, the HII pilot, and the Hermeus 80% figure are company-reported. The STRATFI total and the $30 million / $41.2 million split are from Nominal's October 26 post. A program office or an AFWERX notice with the same split would settle that one outside the company's blog.