NanoCo, the company behind the security-focused AI tool NanoClaw, has raised an oversubscribed $12 million seed round following a rapid surge in interest after its public launch.
The round was led by Valley Capital Partners, with participation from investors including Docker, Vercel, Monday.com, Slow Ventures, and angel investors such as Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue. The funding follows a period of intense inbound investor demand, including a reported acquisition offer of around $20 million that the founders declined.
What The Company Does
NanoClaw is a secure AI agent framework designed as an alternative approach to traditional “always-connected” automation tools. It enables users to run AI agents inside isolated environments, where they operate in sandboxed containers rather than having unrestricted access to a user’s full system and credentials.
The system was originally built by co-founders Gavriel Cohen and Lazer Cohen to support their previous AI marketing startup, where automated agents handled large parts of operational work. Its architecture focuses on reducing security risks by limiting system-level access while still enabling AI agents to interact with approved tools and services.
By design, NanoClaw supports controlled execution of tasks in isolated environments, making it suitable for developers and organisations seeking more secure ways to deploy autonomous AI workflows.
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Market Context / Industry Background
Interest in secure AI agent infrastructure has increased as organisations adopt more autonomous systems that interact with sensitive data and internal tools. While agent-based automation is expanding quickly, concerns around permissions, credential exposure, and system-level access have made sandboxed execution environments more relevant.
Open-source AI infrastructure projects in particular often grow through community-driven adoption, where early developer usage leads to broader enterprise experimentation. In many cases, tools initially built for internal use evolve into infrastructure platforms as external demand accelerates.
NanoClaw’s rapid rise reflects this broader shift, where developer-focused AI tools transition into enterprise-grade systems once usage scales beyond early adopters.
This evolution is also being reinforced by increasing enterprise requirements for auditability, scalability, and compliance, which push early-stage tools to mature faster into production-ready infrastructure layers.
Founder / Investor Commentary
Co-founder Gavriel Cohen described a period of rapid escalation following the project’s initial release, with widespread interest from developers, founders, and investors arriving within weeks of launch.
He noted that the project moved quickly from a side build to a widely adopted tool, driven in part by viral endorsements from well-known figures in the AI research and technology community.
Cohen said the founders faced multiple early acquisition offers, including one in the low eight-figure range, before ultimately choosing to continue building independently.
He added that conversations with early advisors reinforced the long-term value of open-source systems, particularly those that gain momentum through community contributions and use-case expansion rather than early commercialisation.
Growth Plans / Use Of Funds
The new funding will support expansion of NanoCo’s engineering team, further development of the NanoClaw platform, and scaling of its infrastructure for both developer and enterprise use cases.
The company is also beginning to formalise its enterprise offering, including deployment support and implementation services. This includes working with organisations through dedicated engineering teams to help integrate AI agents into internal workflows and ensure secure rollout across teams.
NanoCo is also expanding its commercial footprint as usage grows beyond individual developers into larger organisations, with early adoption reported among technical teams and executives across major global enterprises.
About NanoCo
NanoCo is a software company building NanoClaw, a secure AI agent platform designed to run autonomous workflows in isolated environments. Founded by Gavriel Cohen and Lazer Cohen, the company focuses on enabling safer deployment of AI agents through sandboxed execution, allowing organisations to use automation tools while maintaining strict control over system access and security boundaries.
