Cameron McCord
Co-founder and CEO of Nominal. Truman Scholar with MIT ties; served in the US Navy before working at Applied Intuition and Anduril Industries.
Cameron McCord earned a B.S. in physics, nuclear science and engineering, and political science from MIT (2013) and an S.M. in nuclear engineering (2014), where he was also a 2012 Truman Scholar and NROTC midshipman, and later an MBA from Harvard Business School. He served as a US Navy submarine officer and Navy Congressional Liaison before joining Anduril Industries full-time (2019–2021) to help build the company's counter-UAS product. He then took on overlapping advisory and investing roles — as an advisor at Applied Intuition, Head of Defense at Saildrone, and Investor/Operator at Lux Capital, where he met future co-founder Bryce Strauss — before co-founding Nominal with Strauss (ex-Lockheed Martin) and Jason Hoch (ex-Palantir, ex-Vercel) in August 2022. Nominal builds a unified real-time test and telemetry data stack for hardware and defense engineering teams, used by Anduril, Shield AI, and the US Air Force.
Overview
- Role
- Co-Founder & CEO, Nominal
- Based in
- Los Angeles, CA
- Prior experience
- US Navy (submarine officer; Navy Congressional Liaison), Anduril Industries (Counter-UAS team; 2019-2021), Applied Intuition (advisor), Saildrone (Head of Defense), Lux Capital (Investor/Operator)
Affiliated funds0
No linked records yet.
Frequently asked
- Who is Cameron McCord?
- Cameron McCord earned a B.S. in physics, nuclear science and engineering, and political science from MIT (2013) and an S.M. in nuclear engineering (2014), where he was also a 2012 Truman Scholar and NROTC midshipman, and later an MBA from Harvard Business School. He served as a US Navy submarine officer and Navy Congressional Liaison before joining Anduril Industries full-time (2019–2021) to help build the company's counter-UAS product. He then took on overlapping advisory and investing roles — as an advisor at Applied Intuition, Head of Defense at Saildrone, and Investor/Operator at Lux Capital, where he met future co-founder Bryce Strauss — before co-founding Nominal with Strauss (ex-Lockheed Martin) and Jason Hoch (ex-Palantir, ex-Vercel) in August 2022. Nominal builds a unified real-time test and telemetry data stack for hardware and defense engineering teams, used by Anduril, Shield AI, and the US Air Force.
- What is Cameron McCord's role?
- Cameron McCord is Co-Founder & CEO, Nominal, based in Los Angeles, CA.
- Where did Cameron McCord work before?
- Cameron McCord's prior roles include US Navy (submarine officer; Navy Congressional Liaison), Anduril Industries (Counter-UAS team; 2019-2021), Applied Intuition (advisor), Saildrone (Head of Defense), Lux Capital (Investor/Operator).
Sources & citations8
Each claim links to its underlying source. Confidence reflects how directly the source supports the claim.
- 1
McCord's Harvard MS/MBA background and meeting Bryce Strauss during that period
Harvard SEAS: Building better tools for complex engineering: MS/MBA alum co-founds billion-dollar startupVerified2026-08-09 - 2
Full career sequence: Navy, Anduril, then overlapping Applied Intuition/Saildrone/Lux Capital roles, then Nominal
Contrary Research: Nominal company reportVerified2026-08-09 - 3
MIT degrees, NROTC midshipman, Truman Scholar, Anduril work
MIT News: Accelerating hardware development to improve national security and innovationVerified2025-06-25 - 4
- 5
Nominal founded 2022 by engineers/operators from Anduril, Lockheed Martin, Palantir
PR Newswire: Nominal Raises $75 Million, led by Sequoia Capital, to Modernize Hardware TestingVerified2025-06-12 - 6
- 7
Nominal CEO/co-founder confirmation and funding milestones
TechCrunch: Hardware testing startup Nominal hits $1B valuation, raises $155M in 10 monthsVerified2026-03-05 - 8
Navy submarine service, Applied Intuition, Anduril counter-UAS work under Trae Stephens
Building the Base: From Submariner to CEO: Cameron McCord's Journey Building NominalVerified2026-08-09