NanoCo secures $12m seed after rejecting $20m buyout for AI security tool NanoClaw
The creators of NanoClaw have closed an oversubscribed seed round led by Valley Capital Partners, declining a $20 million acquisition offer to focus on commercialising their sandboxed AI security platform.
NanoCo, the entity behind the security-focused AI tool NanoClaw, has raised an oversubscribed $12 million seed round led by Valley Capital Partners. The capital raise follows a rapid trajectory for the company, with founders Gavriel and Lazer Cohen declining a $20 million acquisition offer to continue developing the open-source project independently. The funding round also includes participation from Docker, Vercel, Monday.com, Slow Ventures, and Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue.
The project gained significant momentum within weeks of its launch, driven by endorsements from prominent figures in the technology sector. AI researcher Andrej Karpathy publicly praised the tool, while Singapore’s Foreign Minister described NanoClaw as his “second brain” in a viral social media post. These endorsements attracted inbound interest from dozens of investors and founders, with Gavriel Cohen noting that approximately 50 individuals sent direct messages expressing interest in investing.
NanoClaw was initially developed as a secure alternative to competitors like OpenClaw, designed to assist the Cohen brothers with their previous AI marketing venture. Unlike standard implementations that run directly on a computer with broad access to credentials, NanoClaw operates within a sandboxed container. This architecture addresses growing concerns regarding AI security, a feature that resonated strongly with the developer community and early adopters.
Prior to the current seed round, the founders received a six-digit acquisition offer from a venture capital firm for their portfolio company. However, after receiving advice that open-source projects gain exponential value through community growth, the brothers shut down their previous business to focus entirely on NanoCo. This strategic pivot occurred just before the viral endorsements, leading to partnerships with Docker and Vercel and eventually the larger $20 million offer, which was also rejected.
NanoCo is now transitioning from a purely open-source model to offering enterprise implementation services, described as “forward-deployed engineers.” Early adopters include executives from major technology firms such as Amazon, Google, Meta, Accenture, Gap, and SentinelOne. While NanoCo has not publicly confirmed the specific identities of these customers, the founders stated that these users are leveraging the platform to roll out AI agents to their employees, creating a demand for professional support services.
