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.

Hessian

YC X26

San Francisco, US · Founded 2026 · 3 employees · 2 known investors

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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.

AI & Machine Learning Developer Tools Enterprise SoftwareUnited KingdomEurope

Founders & leadership· Y Combinator alumni (X26)

Hessian was founded in 2026 by Bao Nguyen, James Smith, and Tom Watson.

Bao Nguyen Co-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.

James Smith Co-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.

Tom Watson Co-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

Y Combinatorlisted by Y CombinatorSan Francisco · $500K

How we know: the Y Combinator directory · open dataset · 5k.vc investor directory · Not right? Tell us

Prime Movers LabreportedJackson · $2M – $30M

How we know: funding news · Not right? Tell us

Founder mafia

2 people who came through Hessian went on to found or lead other companies.

James SmithCOOFounded Fuse +2 Tom WatsonCTOFounded Hubble

Legal entities · 1

corporate structure

Hessian Inc.

In the news

Hessian: Automating business operations with forward-deployed AI agentsycombinator.com · May 2026

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.