NanoClaw creator turns down $20M buyout offer, raises $12M seed instead

NanoCo, the innovative firm behind the security-centric NanoClaw, has successfully secured a remarkable $12 million seed funding round after a highly successful launch. Led by Valley Capital Partners, the funding round attracted notable participation from companies like Docker, Vercel, and Monday.com, alongside influential angel investors such as Clem Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face. Gavriel Cohen, the mastermind behind NanoClaw, shared with TechCrunch how quickly things escalated. Within weeks of developing the project in his living room, he received widespread attention, even garnering endorsements from prominent figures like AI researcher Andrej Karpathy and the Foreign Minister of Singapore, who referred to NanoClaw as his "second brain" in a viral Facebook post. Cohen reflected on the rapid journey, stating, "It took less than six weeks from writing the first lines of code to getting a term sheet." He noted a surge of interest from investors, with about 50 tech professionals reaching out via direct messages and emails, eager to invest in the promising project. One notable outreach came from Delangue, who expressed interest in NanoClaw and later became an angel investor. Initially conceived as a secure alternative to OpenClaw, NanoClaw was designed to assist the Cohen brothers with their previous AI marketing venture. Unlike traditional systems that have direct access to all services and credentials, NanoClaw operates in a sandboxed environment, enhancing security—an increasingly sought-after feature in today's tech landscape. Despite receiving a tempting $20 million acquisition offer, the Cohen brothers chose to decline and instead focus on growing their project. They were advised by a fellow entrepreneur that open-source projects gain substantial value as their community expands. Taking this insight to heart, they shifted their focus solely to NanoClaw, leading to significant developments, including partnerships with major tech players like Docker and Vercel. As their user base grew, so did the interest from potential enterprise clients. Early adopters included executives from leading companies such as Amazon, Google, and Meta, who began setting up their own NanoClaw instances. Recognizing a demand for support, NanoCo has started offering implementation services, known as "forward-deployed engineers," to help organizations roll out NanoClaw AI agents and provide ongoing assistance. With thousands of users already on board, the excitement surrounding NanoClaw continues to intensify, positioning NanoCo for a promising future in the tech industry.