Nous Research, the startup behind the open-source Hermes AI agent, has raised $90 million in a Series B funding round at a valuation of $1.5 billion. The financing marks a major step up for the three-year-old company as it moves beyond developers and individual users and targets businesses with a new enterprise-focused version of its AI agent. TechCrunch reported the funding, with The Wall Street Journal providing the valuation details.
The new capital comes as the AI industry shifts from standalone chatbots toward autonomous agents capable of carrying out multi-step tasks. Nous Research plans to use the funding to develop “Hermes for Businesses,” allowing companies to deploy customised AI agents while maintaining greater control over their data, models and internal knowledge. The company says Hermes has been cloned more than 24 million times since its release, although that figure is based on the company’s own estimate.
Nous Research Raises $90 Million in Series B
The $90 million round was led by Robot Ventures, with participation from a group of major technology and venture investors.
Investors include Nvidia, Union Square Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Samsung and 1789 Capital, according to TechCrunch. The company has also named Microsoft’s M12 and Y Combinator among its investors.
The latest financing brings Nous Research’s total funding to about $158 million.
The company’s valuation has also increased sharply. In July, TechCrunch reported that Nous was seeking at least $75 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. The latest $90 million round confirms that valuation.
Nous Research Funding at a Glance
| Metric | Details |
|---|---|
| Latest funding | $90 million |
| Round | Series B |
| Valuation | $1.5 billion |
| Lead investor | Robot Ventures |
| Key investors | Nvidia, USV, Menlo Ventures, Samsung, 1789 Capital |
| Total funding | About $158 million |
| Founded | 2023 |
| Main product | Hermes AI Agent |
| New focus | Enterprise AI agents |
What Is Nous Research Building?
Nous Research was founded in 2023 and initially focused on developing and fine-tuning open AI models.
Its most visible product today is Hermes, an open-source AI agent designed to perform tasks rather than simply respond to questions.
The agent can interact with users, automate workflows and use capabilities such as web search, coding and image understanding. It can run locally on computers or on virtual servers, giving users greater control over how and where the system operates.
Hermes is also designed to remember projects and develop reusable skills as it works.
That positions it differently from conventional chatbot applications where users generally start each conversation with limited persistent context.
Hermes Moves Into the Enterprise Market
The biggest objective behind the new funding is the transition from individual users to businesses.
Nous Research has launched Hermes for Businesses, a version aimed at organisations that want to deploy AI agents for internal workflows.
The company says businesses will be able to customise their agents and maintain control over their data and institutional knowledge. The system is intended to support multi-step workflows while giving organisations more flexibility over which AI models they use.
This enterprise push places Nous Research in a rapidly expanding segment of the AI market.
From Personal AI to Business AI
The shift can be broadly understood as:
Chatbot → AI assistant → AI agent → Autonomous business workflow
A chatbot primarily answers questions.
An AI assistant can help with tasks.
An AI agent can potentially plan and execute multiple steps to accomplish a broader objective.
For companies, that could mean agents handling research, coding, document processing, data analysis, customer support or other repetitive workflows.
Why Open Source Matters to Nous
Open-source software is central to Nous Research’s strategy.
Hermes is distributed under the MIT licence, allowing developers to inspect, modify and run the software themselves. This can give organisations more control than using a completely closed AI service.
For businesses concerned about sensitive information, the ability to control where an AI agent runs and how it accesses company data can be an important consideration.
It can also allow companies to choose different underlying models depending on cost, performance or specific requirements.
The company has positioned this flexibility as an alternative to highly centralised AI systems.
Hermes Has Built a Large Developer Following
Hermes has gained significant attention among AI developers.
Nous Research says the agent has been cloned more than 24 million times and estimates that Hermes accounts for approximately 2.5% of global AI token usage. These figures are company estimates and have not been independently verified.
Earlier reporting also highlighted Hermes’ strong presence among developers, with the project accumulating hundreds of thousands of GitHub stars and tens of thousands of forks.
The developer community could become an important advantage as Nous enters the enterprise market.
An open-source ecosystem can provide developers with the ability to build extensions, customise agents and integrate the technology with other software.
The AI Agent Market Is Getting More Competitive
Nous Research is entering the enterprise agent market at a time when major technology companies and startups are investing heavily in autonomous AI systems.
AI agents are increasingly being positioned as software that can perform tasks instead of simply generating text.
That has attracted companies across the technology industry.
Nvidia, for example, has been investing in infrastructure and software aimed at supporting enterprise AI agents. Other startups are also developing autonomous systems capable of operating computers, accessing applications and completing tasks on behalf of users.
This means Nous will have to compete not only on model quality but also on reliability, security, ease of deployment and cost.
Revenue Is Growing Alongside Adoption
The funding comes as Nous Research appears to be developing a meaningful commercial business.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the company had approximately $36 million in annualised revenue by mid-September 2026 and expects to exceed $100 million before the end of the year.
If achieved, that would represent rapid growth for a company founded only three years ago.
However, the transition from developer adoption to enterprise revenue is likely to be a different challenge.
Businesses typically require stronger security controls, compliance features, reliability guarantees, administrative tools and customer support than individual users.
What the $90 Million Will Fund
The company is expected to direct the new capital toward expanding Hermes’ products and business model, with the enterprise version becoming a major focus.
The company has also indicated plans around a mobile version of Hermes.
The broader objective is to transform an open-source AI project with strong developer adoption into a commercial platform capable of serving large organisations.
Key Areas of Expansion
- Enterprise AI agents
- Custom business workflows
- Data privacy and security
- Model flexibility
- Developer ecosystem
- Mobile access
- Commercial infrastructure
Why the $1.5 Billion Valuation Matters
A $1.5 billion valuation places Nous Research among a growing group of AI startups that have reached billion-dollar valuations despite being only a few years old.
The valuation also reflects investor expectations around AI agents.
The market is increasingly moving beyond the question of whether AI can generate useful responses. Investors are now betting on systems that can independently perform work.
For Nous, the challenge will be converting strong developer adoption into sustainable enterprise demand.
A large user community can help create an ecosystem, but businesses will ultimately judge the technology based on reliability, security, productivity gains and total cost.
The Bigger Picture
Nous Research’s $90 million funding round reflects the rapidly changing AI startup landscape, where open-source agents are becoming increasingly important competitors to closed AI platforms. The company’s $1.5 billion valuation shows that investors see significant commercial potential in AI systems capable of executing tasks rather than simply answering questions.
The more important test now begins with enterprise adoption. Hermes already has a substantial developer following, but selling AI agents to businesses requires a different combination of security, reliability, governance and measurable productivity gains. If Nous can successfully make that transition, its open-source approach could become a meaningful alternative to proprietary enterprise AI systems.
Looking Ahead
Nous Research is likely to focus heavily on Hermes for Businesses as it deploys the new capital. The company’s ability to turn open-source adoption into recurring enterprise revenue will be closely watched as businesses increasingly experiment with autonomous AI agents.
The wider AI market is also moving toward systems that can perform increasingly complex workflows with limited human intervention. For Nous Research, the $1.5 billion valuation creates high expectations, but the next stage will depend on whether Hermes can move from a popular developer tool into a dependable platform for large-scale business operations.
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