Nous Research raises $90m to build Hermes for Businesses

Nous Research raises $90m to build Hermes for Businesses

7 October 2026: Nous Research, the company behind the open-source Hermes Agent, has raised $90 million. In a note on its site the company lists NVIDIA, Microsoft's M12, Samsung, Robot Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator and Menlo Ventures among the investors, and does not say who led or what the round is called.

Not yet independently verified. Nous names no round stage, lead investor or headquarters in its note. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

Nous says it was formed in 2023 to counter the centralisation of AI in a few gate-kept systems, and that the capital will go toward an alternative it describes as open, competitive and safer because it can be audited. It calls $90 million modest by current fundraising standards.

The product at the centre is Hermes Agent, an agent that Nous says learns the more it is used: it remembers projects, writes reusable skills as it works and carries that knowledge across sessions. Users choose where it runs and which models it uses. Nous released it under the MIT licence in February. The company says it has been cloned more than 24 million times and, by its own internal estimates, drives about 2.5% of all global token usage. It also says thousands of contributors have built on it.

The new money pays for Hermes for Businesses. Nous describes an agent that lets a company own its intelligence stack, choose the best models at the best prices, keep use private and build up knowledge from its own staff. The note gives no release date, pricing or licence terms for the business edition.

Ventureburn adds that the enterprise version is expected to include autonomous web search, coding and image understanding, and that it can run models locally or in the cloud.

Company profile on TrustList: Nous Research

Sources

• Nous Research: A Note on Our Fundraise, 7 October 2026
• Ventureburn: Nous Research raises $90 million to bring Hermes AI agents to the enterprise market, 7 October 2026