Nous Research raises $90m Series B with Nvidia and Samsung among backers
Nous Research’s $90 million Series B, led by Robot Ventures, values the Hermes AI agent developer at a reported $1.5 billion.
By Wei-Lin Zhao · AI Correspondent
· 3 min read
Nous Research has raised a $90 million Series B led by Robot Ventures, with Nvidia, Samsung, Microsoft’s M12, Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator and Menlo Ventures named among the investors. The Nous Research $90m Series B values the company at $1.5 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal, while Nous did not disclose a valuation in its own announcement.
The financing, reported Oct. 7, is intended to support an enterprise push for Hermes, Nous’ open-source AI agent. The company also said it plans to build a mobile app, but did not give a launch date or identify supported platforms. Individual investment amounts, revenue, customer figures and headcount were not disclosed in the available reports.
What will Nous Research do with its Series B funding?
Nous is seeking to adapt Hermes for business users. The company says a planned Hermes for Businesses product will allow customers to choose models according to price and task, keep AI usage private and retain ownership of company knowledge. Those are stated product goals, not evidence that corporations have adopted Hermes at scale.
The enterprise focus puts Nous in a familiar position for open-source AI companies: it has developer distribution but must establish whether that usage can become a business product. The company’s case is that open-source architecture can offer enterprises more control over data and reduce dependence on one software vendor, a bet described by the Journal rather than a reported customer outcome.
What is Hermes?
Nous released Hermes under the MIT license in February. The agent lets users select the models it runs, remembers projects and can create reusable skills as it works, according to The Next Web’s description of the product. It is available across macOS, Windows and Linux, and can work through services including Telegram, Slack and WhatsApp.
SiliconANGLE reported that the desktop application can access files and programs on a user’s machine, browse for web information and run code in a Docker container. It can use external large language models, including Claude, as well as Nous’ fine-tuned open-source models.
Usage figures vary by source and wording. Nous says people have cloned Hermes more than 24 million times since its release; the Journal reported more than 22 million downloads since February. Nous also estimates internally that Hermes accounts for about 2.5% of global token usage, a company-generated figure that has not been independently established in the reports.
Robot Ventures is identified as the round’s lead by SiliconANGLE. Nous named Nvidia, M12, Samsung Next, Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator and Menlo Ventures among the participants, without setting out their respective commitments. The combination of chipmaker, corporate and venture backing gives Nous capital for its enterprise plan, but the announcement provides no financial results or customer adoption data against which to judge that plan.
This story draws on original reporting from SiliconANGLE.
