BREAKING: Sequoia Leads Nominal's $75M Series B
No. 1 on Midas List, Sequoia's Alfred Lin Joins Board
Inside Nominal’s $75M Series B | The Future of Hardware Testing
Cameron McCord, CEO & Co-Founder, announces Nominal’s $75 million Series B led by Sequoia, bringing their total funding to over $100 million. With this funding, #1 on the Midas list VC investor, Alfred Lin of Sequoia is joining their board. Cameron, alongside Stephen Slattery, Growth & Product at Nominal, delve into Nominal’s rapid 10-day funding process, driven by thorough due diligence and their impressive customer testimonials.
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Nominal builds software that helps organizations test and validate complex hardware systems, everything from drones and nuclear reactors to autonomous submarines. We go deep into their innovative core products, Core and Connect, and their impressive traction in aerospace, defense, energy, and maritime industries. Closing large early customers like Shield AI, Antares, and Vatn.
Cameron and Stephen, share insights into their backgrounds, including experiences in the US Navy, Applied Intuition, Anduril, Lux Capital, SpaceX, and other prestigious institutions, & how these experiences led to creating & building Nominal.
Learn how Nominal accelerates testing processes, the company’s growth strategies, and the unique challenges and advancements in the hardware sector. Plus, Cameron’s fascinating background as a submarine officer (!!!!).
We go deep into:
00:00 - $75M Series B Led by Sequoia
03:12- From Anduril to Nominal
06:01 - Market Opportunities & Challenges in Aerospace and Defense
08:58 - Continuous Hardware Testing
11:48 - Nominal's Unified Operating Platform: Features and Benefits
17:55 - Trends and Predictions in the Defense Sector
20:48 - Navigating the Supply Chain & Testing Landscape
23:48 - The Importance of Collaboration with Primes
26:49 - Delta Qualification: Accelerating Hardware Development
34:06 - Nominal's Products: Core and Connect
52:10 - Case Studies: Aerospace, Nuclear, and Maritime
01:00:24 - Efficiency Gains & Cost Savings for Customers
01:03:20 - Navigating Innovation in a Rapidly Changing Landscape
01:06:49 - GTM Strategies for Diverse Customers
01:09:10 - Building a Talented Team for Growth
01:14:57 - Lessons from Fundraising & Future Outlook
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Deep Dive: Nominal
Fast, Oversubscribed $75M Series B
Nominal raised its $75 million Series B in just 10 days, led by Sequoia’s Alfred Lin who joined the board. “It was not a lackadaisical 10 days—it was intense,” said McCord. Sequoia ran deep diligence, speaking with every customer. “That level of rigor built conviction quickly. They even told us we might be underselling the TAM.”
Lightspeed also joined the round, with Partners Guru Chahal and Connor Love. Lightspeed’s operating DNA particularly stood out. “Guru has built companies in both hardware and software—he gets what we’re doing,” McCord noted. “Connor has become one of the most respected defense-tech investors out there. We’ve even had him speak at our all-hands.”
The company was founded about three years ago, has over 60 employees now, and previously raised $20 million in a Series A funding led by Paul Kwan, Managing Director at General Catalyst.
“We’re delivering the software stack purpose-built for hardware engineers, making continuous testing as seamless for hardware as it is for software.
With this raise, we’re accelerating our Core and Connect product roadmaps, building new products across the hardware test stack, and more than doubling our grounded, obsessed, world-class team.
Thank you to our customers for trusting Nominal as you build, test, and operate the hardware shaping the future. Your mission is our purpose.” Nominal
Market Size: Continuous Hardware Testing
Nominal’s mission is to enable “continuous hardware testing”—a shift from static, one-time validation to constant, real-world data-driven feedback loops. “Every piece of hardware—whether it's a drone, satellite, or reactor—generates telemetry. We help teams validate and analyze it, in real time,” said McCord.
They serve dual-use customers across aerospace, defense, manufacturing, energy, and logistics. “It’s an effectively infinite TAM,” McCord added. “The core need—making test and operations data useful—is everywhere.”
The Problem: Tools That Don’t Scale
McCord’s background spans the U.S. Navy, Anduril, Saildrone, Lux, and Applied Intuition. Across all of them, he saw the same problem: engineers cobbling together outdated or misfit tools for critical tests. “It was either legacy tools built before the cloud or modern SaaS products that didn’t account for hardware constraints,” he said. “I left Anduril shocked that Nominal didn’t already exist.”
Slattery, who previously worked at SpaceX and Anduril, agreed. “At SpaceX, we had the budget to build internal tools. At Anduril, we were back to spreadsheets and scripts. I wanted to fix that.”
The Product: Core + Connect
Nominal now offers two products:
Core, a cloud-based platform for hardware telemetry. It replaces patchwork internal stacks with a collaborative system for ingesting, analyzing, and validating hardware test data. “We're giving hardware teams a unified solution for their workflows that were previously spread across half a dozen tools like MATLAB, Foxglove, and Grafana,” Slattery explained.
Connect, a native desktop app for edge environments—production lines, air-gapped defense systems, and real-time test stands. Launched just months ago, it’s already replacing legacy systems like LabVIEW.
Both products are designed to meet engineers where they are—air-gapped or cloud-connected, early-stage or in deployment.
Accelerate test. Accelerate progress.
Nominal powers mission-critical engineering work with modern analysis tools, real-time observability, and advanced data infrastructure — all in one collaborative workspace.
Equip Engineers to test and operate critical technology
Nominal provides the tools and infrastructure Engineers need to deliver mission-critical capabilities at scale in the shortest time possible.
Hardware innovation moves at the speed of test
We accelerate test for commercial and government partners with industrial-grade software and support. With hubs across the U.S., we operate where our customers do — delivering them tools & infrastructure exactly when, where, and how they need them.
Why Now: Industrial Renaissance, Data Explosion
The demand for high-velocity test infrastructure is accelerating. “Everything is becoming more software-defined. Hardware programs that used to take 10 years now aim for 24 months,” McCord said. “Test is the bottleneck. Software is the unlock.”