Nous Research, the open-source AI startup behind the Hermes autonomous agent, is finalizing a funding round of at least $75 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch, citing three sources with knowledge of the deal. Robot Ventures is leading the round, with significant participation from Union Square Ventures.
The raise nearly doubles the company’s total funding. Before this round, Nous Research had raised $70 million from Paradigm, Robot Ventures, North Island Ventures, OSS Capital, and angel investor Balaji Srinivasan, according to Crunchbase data cited by TechCrunch. Nous Research declined to comment. USV and Robot Ventures did not respond to TechCrunch’s requests for comment.
Hermes vs. OpenClaw
Founded in 2023 by Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, Ryan Teknium, and Shivani Mitra, Nous Research launched Hermes shortly after OpenClaw’s agent went viral earlier this year. Both platforms allow users to automate tasks, run agents remotely, and interact through messaging apps like Telegram and Discord.
Hermes differentiates on two fronts. First, it ships with built-in “skills” for web search, coding, and image understanding out of the box. Second, the agent is designed to learn automatically from user behavior and build new skills without manual intervention, reducing the setup and maintenance overhead that agent operators typically face.
The developer community has responded. Hermes has accumulated roughly 214,000 GitHub stars and nearly 40,000 forks, according to Times of India. Users can run the agent locally on a desktop or virtual private server, or opt for Nous Research’s cloud-hosted version with paid tiers ranging from $20 to $200 per month.
Open-Source Agent Infrastructure as a Venture Category
The round lands during a concentrated stretch of funding for open-source AI infrastructure. Ollama closed a $65 million Series B last week after reaching 8.9 million developer users with just 14 employees. Physical Intelligence is reportedly in discussions to raise approximately $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation for AI robotics.
The pattern across these raises: investors are betting that open-source frameworks that developers already use at scale will capture value as enterprise adoption accelerates. Hermes’ 214,000 GitHub stars and Ollama’s 8.9 million users represent the kind of distribution that traditionally precedes commercial conversion in developer tools.
Sources told TechCrunch the new funding will help expand Hermes’ products and business model, though specifics were not disclosed.