HomeNous Research, Creator of Hermes Agent, in Funding Talks at $1.5B Valuation
According to three sources with knowledge of the deal, Nous Research, the startup behind the open-source Hermes agent, is finalizing a new funding round led by Robot Ventures, with significant participation from USV and other prominent investors, at a valuation of $1.5 billion. The company is raising at least $75 million and saw strong interest from investors, according to the people.
Nous Research declined to comment, while USV and Robot Ventures did not respond to requests for comment.
Founded in 2023 by Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, Ryan Teknium, and Shivani Mitra, the company had raised a total of $70 million prior to this round from investors including Paradigm, Robot Ventures, North Island Ventures, OSS Capital, and Balaji Srinivasan, according to Crunchbase.
In addition to developing Hermes, Nous Research operates a decentralized network that contributes hardware for computing and training. It has also released language models focused on coding and math.
Weeks after OpenClaw’s agent went viral, Nous Research released its own competitor, Hermes. OpenClaw is an agent that runs locally on a PC and can perform tasks on behalf of the user. One key difference is that Hermes ships with built-in “skills” such as web search, coding, and image understanding. Moreover, it is designed to automatically learn from user interactions and build additional skills without manual intervention.
Like OpenClaw, users can automate tasks with Hermes, chat with the agents, or receive messages from them in apps such as Telegram and Discord. These tools have become increasingly popular as they allow users to run their AI agents remotely and around the clock.
Open-source and widely adopted, Hermes has amassed a large following on GitHub, with roughly 214,000 stars and nearly 40,000 forks. Developers can run Hermes on a desktop or on a virtual private server.
However, Nous Research also offers a cloud-hosted version, which some users may find more user-friendly, as it avoids the need to set up on their own machines. The hosted version is available through various paid tiers ranging from $20 to $200 per month.
Sources say the new funding will help expand Hermes products and further develop the business model.
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According to three sources with knowledge of the deal, Nous Research, the startup behind the open-source Hermes agent, is finalizing a new funding round led by Robot Ventures, with significant participation from USV and other prominent investors, at a valuation of $1.5 billion. The company is raising at least $75 million and saw strong interest from investors, according to the people.
Nous Research declined to comment, while USV and Robot Ventures did not respond to requests for comment.
Founded in 2023 by Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, Ryan Teknium, and Shivani Mitra, the company had raised a total of $70 million prior to this round from investors including Paradigm, Robot Ventures, North Island Ventures, OSS Capital, and Balaji Srinivasan, according to Crunchbase.
In addition to developing Hermes, Nous Research operates a decentralized network that contributes hardware for computing and training. It has also released language models focused on coding and math.
Weeks after OpenClaw’s agent went viral, Nous Research released its own competitor, Hermes. OpenClaw is an agent that runs locally on a PC and can perform tasks on behalf of the user. One key difference is that Hermes ships with built-in “skills” such as web search, coding, and image understanding. Moreover, it is designed to automatically learn from user interactions and build additional skills without manual intervention.
Like OpenClaw, users can automate tasks with Hermes, chat with the agents, or receive messages from them in apps such as Telegram and Discord. These tools have become increasingly popular as they allow users to run their AI agents remotely and around the clock.
Open-source and widely adopted, Hermes has amassed a large following on GitHub, with roughly 214,000 stars and nearly 40,000 forks. Developers can run Hermes on a desktop or on a virtual private server.
However, Nous Research also offers a cloud-hosted version, which some users may find more user-friendly, as it avoids the need to set up on their own machines. The hosted version is available through various paid tiers ranging from $20 to $200 per month.
Sources say the new funding will help expand Hermes products and further develop the business model.
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