Hessian
YC X26San Francisco, US · Founded 2026 · 3 employees · 2 known investors
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539 people in our graph share verified history with the Hessian team — schools, employers, funds. One of them is your warm intro.
Maria Drobotunlockedknows James Smith · together at Durham University (overlapped)
knows the team · via Durham University
knows the team · via University of Cambridge
×7knows the team · via Y Combinator
knows the team · via GoCardless
knows the team · via UK Civil Service
Hessian deploys AI agents and engineers to automate operations and knowledge work across businesses, handling tasks like proposal drafting, invoice reconciliation, and data management. The company provides end-to-end automation systems built on its own platform for enterprise clients.
Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (X26)
Hessian was founded in 2026 by Bao Nguyen, James Smith, and Tom Watson.
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Bao NguyeninCo-FounderHe previously co-founded Zettafleet, a decentralized LLM training platform, and worked as a software engineer at Bloomberg developing machine learning pipelines for asset rating and index management. He holds an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and a BSc in Computer Science from Durham University, with published research in ML systems.
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James SmithinCo-FounderHe previously spent five years at Bloomberg developing data infrastructure for financial services and worked at DRW on commodities trading data systems; he holds a degree in computer science from Durham University.
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Tom WatsoninCo-FounderTom is co-founder and CTO at Hessian, overseeing platform engineering. He previously worked at GoCardless on database infrastructure for a payments system, and at CMC Markets developing a retail trading application. He holds a BSc in Computer Science from Durham University.
Investors · 2
In the news
Frequently asked questions
- What does Hessian do?
- Hessian deploys AI agents and engineers to automate operations and knowledge work across businesses, handling tasks like proposal drafting, invoice reconciliation, and data management. The company provides end-to-end automation systems built on its own platform for enterprise clients.
- Who founded Hessian?
- Hessian was founded by Bao Nguyen, James Smith, Tom Watson in 2026.
- Who are Hessian's investors?
- Hessian's investors include Y Combinator, Prime Movers Lab.
- Where is Hessian headquartered?
- Hessian is headquartered in San Francisco, US.