Nous Research reports $90 million Series B and launches Hermes Business

TechCrunch reported that Nous Research raised $90 million in a Series B at a $1.5 billion valuation, with Robot Ventures leading the round.[1] It named Nvidia, Union Square Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Samsung and 1789 Capital among the other backers.[1] Nous’s own fundraise note also named Microsoft’s M12 and Y Combinator as investors.[2] TechCrunch said the financing brought the company’s total funding to $158 million.[1] The Next Web reported that Nous did not provide a valuation, so the $1.5 billion figure should be attributed to TechCrunch rather than presented as a company-confirmed valuation.[1][5]

Nous says it was formed in 2023 to oppose AI centralization and walled gardens, and says the new funding will help it build an open alternative that it considers safer because it is auditable.[2] The company says Hermes has been cloned more than 24 million times and estimates that it accounts for approximately 2.5% of global AI token usage.[2] It also says thousands of contributors helped build Hermes, with thousands more building on it.[2] Nous says it released Hermes Agent under an MIT license in February.[2]

Nous says Hermes for Businesses will let companies deploy customized agents for multi-step workflows while keeping data private and secure.[1] The Hermes Business website says the product ships today and describes a shared team deployment with hosted agents for each member and skills shared across the organization.[3] Skills created by one team member can be published to a shared library and made available to everyone’s agent, according to Nous.[3] The company says teams can see AI-model costs and return on investment, while members draw from a balance with per-member spending caps set by the team.[3]

Nous says Hermes Business supports models on its inference API as well as customers’ own provider keys.[3] Business data is stored in an isolated tenant on Nous infrastructure, while Enterprise deployments keep data on the customer’s infrastructure.[3] Nous says the product works with Discord, Telegram, Slack and WhatsApp, as well as terminal, desktop and cloud interfaces.[3] For Enterprise, Nous lists tailored deployment, single sign-on, service-level agreements and white-glove onboarding.[3] The company says team-created skills, memories and workflows can compound into proprietary capability.[3] Teams evaluating the offer should compare the deployment model and controls with their own requirements.