NanoCo, the company behind the security-focused NanoClaw, an OpenClaw alternative, has successfully raised an oversubscribed $12 million seed round after a viral launch, according to its founders in a discussion with TechCrunch.
The round was spearheaded by Valley Capital Partners, with participation from Docker, Vercel, Monday.com, Slow Ventures, and angels like Clem Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face.
In just several weeks, NanoClaw’s creator Gavriel Cohen (pictured above, left) transitioned from programming the project at home to receiving endorsements from Andrej Karpathy and Singapore’s foreign minister. He dealt with interest from numerous investors and rejected an approximate $20 million acquisition offer he and his brother and co-founder, Lazer Cohen (pictured above, right), turned down.
“It was under six weeks from committing the first lines of code to a term sheet,” Gavriel told TechCrunch.
“There was a lot of inbound and interest,” he added, remarking that around 50 or more founders and tech executives showed interest, sending messages and emails. One such individual was Delangue, who messaged: “I like what you’re doing with NanoClaw.” Gavriel expressed mutual admiration, commenting on Hugging Face’s Reachy Mini robot and expressing hope to run NanoClaw on it in the future.
This exchange led to technical discussions, where Cohen successfully secured Delangue’s interest in angel investment.
An active member of NanoClaw’s open-source community is already working on integrating it with Reachy Mini, according to Gavriel.
Interest in NanoClaw surged after AI researcher Andrej Karpathy praised it, but real momentum began when Singapore’s Foreign Minister called it his “second brain” in a viral Facebook post.
Initially designed as a secure replacement for OpenClaw to aid the Cohens’ previous AI marketing startup, NanoClaw operates sandboxed in a container rather than directly on a computer with full access to services and credentials. This practice is increasingly common for more secure OpenClaw-like setups.
Just a few months ago, the concept was pioneering and soon captivated much attention. The brothers sought advice on transforming this free project into a company. A VC even proposed a six-digit purchase offer.
While considering, a founding friend pointed out the exponential value growth of open-source projects tied to community growth, providing code contributions and demonstrating varied uses.
Acknowledging this, the Cohens dedicated themselves to NanoClaw fully, truncating their prior business. Viral acclaim and partnerships with Docker and Vercel soon followed.
Shortly after declining an initial offer, they received a $20 million proposal, including job positions, which they also refused.
“Since then, it’s only escalated. We have many thousands of people using NanoClaw,” Gavriel explained.
Now, NanoCo has begun securing enterprise customers, an idea that originated from its community. The first adopters were tech-skilled individuals, often executives at large tech firms. Post-initial setup, they frequently received inquiries from coworkers seeking setup assistance.
These individuals prefer not to serve as NanoClaw IT personnel, whereas NanoCo is stepping in to offer these services. It now provides implementation services, termed “forward-deployed engineers,” to aid companies in deploying NanoClaw AI agents for staff and furnishing ongoing support.
While NanoCo chose not to reveal early enterprise customers, executives at companies such as Amazon, Gap, Google, Meta, SentinelOne, and Accenture are reportedly utilizing NanoClaw.