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CloudNC raises $20m to put AI on the shop floor

The London company says its software is used by more than 1,000 machine shops, and Lockheed Martin is both a customer and an investor. A quoting product follows later this year.

By The Gazette desk11 September 2026220

CloudNC has raised €17.2 million, or $20 million, for software that writes CNC machining instructions.

The round was led by Nimble Ventures, an American investor. Calculus Venture Capital, Entrepreneur First and LM Ventures, Lockheed Martin's venture capital fund, also took part.

The company was founded in 2015 and is based in London.

Its main product is CAM Assist. It uses AI to cut the time needed to produce machining strategies and toolpaths, the step between a design and a machine actually cutting metal.

CloudNC reports that the technology is used by more than 1,000 machine shops worldwide, including hundreds in the United States. It names Lockheed Martin, Major Tool and Machine among its customers.

That makes Lockheed Martin both a shareholder, through LM Ventures, and a named user.

The company says the money arrives as it moves from early adopters of CAM Assist to broader commercial scale. It has not published revenue figures.

A second product, Quote Agent, is due later in 2026. It assesses incoming jobs and prepares quotes.

Chief executive and co-founder Theo Saville argues that quoting is where shops lose money twice over: too slow and the job goes elsewhere, priced wrong and the margin disappears once the work reaches the floor.

CloudNC is also working with Knox Systems towards FedRAMP certification for CAM Assist. That is the American federal cloud security standard, and without it US government agencies and defence contractors cannot run sensitive work through the software.

The rest of the money goes on commercial presence, customer support and partner activity in what the company calls fast-growing markets. It has not said which ones.

For founders selling software into factories, the shape of this deal is the interesting part. The strategic investor is also the reference customer, and the compliance paperwork — not the model — is what decides whether the biggest buyers are allowed to sign.

Machine shops everywhere are under pressure to quote and program faster, and deliver more with the people and machines they already have.
Theo Saville, CEO and co-founder, CloudNC

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