Nous Research, the Agent Creator for Hermes, Pursues New Funding at a $1.5 Billion Valuation
Nous Research, the company behind the open-source Hermes agent, is nearing the completion of a new funding round spearheaded by Robot Ventures, with notable contributions from USV and other key investors, reaching a valuation of $1.5 billion. Sources indicate that the firm is aiming to secure at least $75 million and has attracted considerable interest from backers.
Nous Research opted not to comment, and representatives from USV and Robot Ventures did not reply to inquiries.
Founded in 2023 by Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, Ryan Teknium, and Shivani Mitra, the company had previously secured $70 million in funding from various investors, including Paradigm, Robot Ventures, North Island Ventures, OSS Capital, and Balaji Srinivasan, as reported by Crunchbase.
Shortly after Openclaw’s agent gained significant traction, Nous Research introduced its own competitor named Hermes. Unlike Openclaw, which operates locally on a PC to assist users with tasks, Hermes comes with integrated “skills” for web searching, coding, and image comprehension. Moreover, it is engineered to learn from user interactions and develop additional capabilities autonomously, without requiring user input. The startup also provides specialized language models tailored for coding and mathematics.
Similar to Openclaw, Hermes allows users to automate tasks and communicate with AI agents, or receive messages via platforms such as Telegram and Discord. The growing popularity of these tools enables users to run AI agents remotely and continuously.
As an open-source solution with extensive adoption, Hermes has gained a vast following on GitHub, amassing around 214,000 stars and nearly 40,000 forks. Developers have the option to deploy Hermes on local desktops or virtual private servers.
In addition, Nous Research provides a cloud-hosted version of Hermes, which may appeal to users seeking a more accessible experience without the need for personal setup. The cloud service is offered at different subscription levels, ranging from $20 to $200 per month.
Insiders suggest that the new funding will be utilized to enhance the product offerings and expand the business model of Hermes.
