Nous Research’s Hermes Agent Funding Talks: What the $1.5B Valuation Signals

Nous Research, the startup behind the open-source Hermes agent, is finalizing a new funding round at a $1.5 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch. The company is raising at least $75 million, with Robot Ventures leading and significant participation from USV and other investors. The report says the company fielded strong investor interest, while Nous Research declined to comment and USV and Robot Ventures did not respond to requests for comment.

Hermes is positioned as an open-source AI agent that can automate tasks and interact with users through channels including Telegram and Discord. It followed the viral rise of Openclaw’s agent, with Hermes adding built-in “skills” such as web search, coding and image understanding. TechCrunch reports Hermes was designed to learn from usage and build more skills without manual intervention.

Hermes has reportedly built a large developer following on GitHub, with roughly 214,000 stars and nearly 40,000 forks. Developers can run Hermes on a desktop or virtual private server, while Nous Research also offers a cloud-hosted version for users who want less setup. The hosted version is available through paid tiers ranging from $20 to $200 a month.

The new funding is expected to help expand Hermes’ products and business model, according to TechCrunch’s sources. Before this round, Nous Research had raised a total of $70 million from investors including Paradigm, Robot Ventures, North Island Ventures, OSS Capital and Balaji Srinivasan, according to Crunchbase as cited by TechCrunch. For AI startup watchers, the key question is how Nous balances open-source adoption with paid product growth.