Hardware testing startup Nominal raises $80M at $1B valuation – News

Engineering software startup Nominal Inc. today announced that it has closed a $80 million funding round at a $1 billion valuation.

Founders Fund led the Series B-2 investment. It was joined by Sequoia Capital, Lux Capital, General Catalyst, Lightspeed and Red Glass. The deal comes less than a year after Nominal’s previous raise.

Complex physical systems such as cars are developed through an iterative process. Engineers create an initial prototype, test it to find flaws and refine the design to address those flaws. They then repeat the workflow with every subsequent iteration of the design until it’s ready. That regular testing accounts for a significant portion of the time needed to bring new products to market. 

Los Angeles-based Nominal offers two applications that promise to significantly speed up hardware tests. The company says that its software is being used to develop satellites, aircraft, autonomous vehicles and a wide range of other systems.

One reason hardware tests are time-consuming is that the telemetry they produce can’t be analyzed right away. Engineers first have to prepare the data by organizing it into a consistent format and removing errors. Nominal’s first application, Nominal Core, automates the task to save time for engineers. The company says the software can process test data from hundreds of sources at once.

Nominal Core can find trends in the information that it generates. For example, the software could detect if a certain component’s average operating temperature started rising after a recent design change. It visualizes findings in a dashboard to ease analysis.

Nominal Connect, the company’s other platform, enables engineers to create custom visualizations. An aerospace company could create a dashboard that shows the flight paths of the satellites in an internet constellation. The software provides buttons, charts and other packaged interface elements that remove the need for users to create everything from scratch.

Customers can use Nominal Connect not only to observe physical systems but also to control them. For example, an industrial company might wish to disable one of a robotic arm’s actuators during a test to determine how well it reacts to hardware failures.

“Engineers building complex systems shouldn’t have to work around their tools,” said Sequoia Partner Alfred Lin. “Nominal removes that friction to give teams both speed and reliability.”

Nominal says that its revenue grew by a factor of seven in the year leading up to the funding round, though it didn’t provide absolute sales numbers. The company’s installed base comprises thousands of engineers across more than 60 organizations. Nominal will use the capital to expand its international presence, which currently consists of an office in London, and make acquisitions. 

Image: Nominal