hardware-testing
(3)
Cameron McCord
Cameron McCord is the co-founder and CEO of Nominal, a defense-tech software company modernizing how the world tests and validates mission-critical hardware. A former US Navy nuclear submarine officer who logged 484 days underwater, he studied physics and nuclear engineering at MIT and earned an MBA at Harvard before building product at Anduril and investing at Lux Capital. Founded in 2022, Nominal reached a $1 billion valuation after raising $155 million in ten months, counting four of the five largest US defense contractors among its customers.
Nominal
Nominal builds the software stack that lets hardware engineering teams test, validate, and operate complex physical systems - fighter jets, nuclear reactors, satellites, rockets, robots - as fast as software teams ship code. Its platform unifies high-frequency telemetry, logs, video, and simulation data so teams can analyze and trust every test. Founded in 2022 by veterans of the U.S. Navy, Anduril, Palantir, and Lockheed Martin, Nominal reached a $1 billion valuation in 2026 and now counts four of the five largest defense contractors among its customers.
Arena Physica
Arena Physica is a New York-based AI company building 'electromagnetic superintelligence' - AI systems grounded in applied physics that accelerate the design, testing, and optimization of advanced hardware. Its Atlas platform and Heaviside foundation model predict electromagnetic behavior from geometry in milliseconds, claiming roughly 800,000x faster results than commercial solvers, and are used by hardware leaders across semiconductors, aerospace, automotive, medical devices, and defense.