Nominal, a hardware intelligence platform for engineering teams, has raised $240 million in Series C funding at a $3 billion valuation. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and co-led by Insight Partners.
Other investors participating in the round include Lux Capital, Sequoia, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Avenir, Salesforce Ventures, M13, Lockheed Martin Ventures, Red Glass Ventures, PSP Growth and Deployment Capital.
The company will use the funding to expand its AI-powered engineering platform, develop new applications and agents, enter additional industries and regions, and pursue strategic acquisitions.
“Hardware engineering is getting its AI moment, with real operational value that goes far beyond making existing workflows faster,” said Cameron McCord, Nominal co-founder and CEO. “The companies building the world’s most advanced machines have decades of hard-won knowledge in their organizations. We’re building the platform that puts that knowledge to work, connecting it to data, so engineers can take on harder problems and build things that weren’t possible before. Engineers stay in command, with purpose-built AI helping them do their best work.”
Bringing AI to Hardware Engineering
Nominal is building software that helps engineering teams manage complex hardware data and use AI to improve how machines are designed, tested and developed.
As industries such as aerospace, defence, robotics, energy and advanced manufacturing adopt more advanced technologies, engineering teams are dealing with increasingly complex systems. However, much of the software used in hardware development still relies on legacy systems and disconnected tools. Important technical knowledge is also often held by individual engineers rather than stored in a shared system.
Nominal aims to address this problem by connecting engineering data with the context behind it. Its platform helps teams investigate technical issues, analyse complex systems and make better-informed engineering decisions.
The platform also allows AI agents to work with engineering data and historical knowledge. Its first AI agent, Nominal Analyst, can investigate data and perform complex analyses, with results linked to the underlying evidence. Engineers remain responsible for important decisions, reviews and approvals.
“Nominal has become an essential part of how some of the most ambitious engineering teams build and validate hardware. The company earned that position by understanding the realities of hardware engineering and building software engineers use every day,” said Guru Chahal and Sebastian Duesterhoeft, partners at Lightspeed. “As AI creates new possibilities across the physical world, we believe Nominal is uniquely positioned to help these teams adopt it where the stakes are highest. We’re proud to deepen our partnership with the Nominal team as they build the platform for the next era of hardware engineering.”
Nominal supports different deployment environments, including cloud infrastructure, on-premises systems, air-gapped environments and edge devices. Through SQL, APIs and the Model Context Protocol (MCP), developers can also connect existing tools, build applications and create custom workflows and AI agents.
Defence and Industrial Customers Use Nominal
More than 80 commercial and government organisations use Nominal, including five of the seven largest defence contractors.
At Anduril Industries, more than 300 engineers use the platform across different programmes. Nominal says analysis that previously took five to six hours can now be completed in near real time.
At HII, the platform has reduced some analysis tasks from hours to minutes and cut certain production testing steps by approximately half. Aerospace company Hermeus reduced the time between uploading engineering data and reviewing it by 80% while developing its Quarterhorse Mk 1 aircraft.
Nominal has also secured a $71.2 million Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) selection from the US Air Force to support Collaborative Combat Aircraft capability development.
The company initially gained traction in the defence sector, where engineering teams must meet demanding technical and security requirements. Its platform provides a shared workspace for organisations to exchange test evidence and collaborate while maintaining control over their intellectual property.
Expansion Plans and Acquisitions
Nominal plans to develop more AI agents and applications that support different stages of a machine’s lifecycle. These include requirements verification, engineering planning, scheduling and fleet health management.
The company is also looking to expand into new industries and international markets through product development and strategic acquisitions.
As part of this strategy, Nominal acquired Fid Labs, whose team is developing the company’s AI agents, and Pull Systems, which expands its capabilities in the automotive industry.
Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Nominal also has offices in Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Washington, D.C. and London. Its platform serves engineering teams across aerospace, defence, robotics, energy and advanced manufacturing.
