Nous Research Secures $90 Million Series B at $1.5 Billion Valuation to Scale Open-Source Enterprise AI Agents

Nous Research, the artificial intelligence startup behind the widely popular open-source Hermes agent, has officially closed a $90 million Series B funding round at a valuation of $1.5 billion. The milestone confirms earlier industry reporting and marks a significant leap for the three-year-old company as it looks to expand its presence beyond the developer community and into the enterprise sector.

The investment round was led by Robot Ventures, with participation from a high-profile roster of backers, including hardware giant Nvidia, Union Square Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Samsung, and 1789 Capital, a venture firm where Donald Trump Jr. serves as a partner. With this fresh infusion of capital, Nous Research has now raised a total of $158 million since its inception.

The rapid financial growth and soaring valuation reflect the massive organic adoption that Nous Research has achieved with the Hermes agent. Built as an open-source solution, Hermes has captured the imagination of developers, researchers, and individual tech enthusiasts around the globe. According to internal estimates provided by the startup, the open-source Hermes agent has been cloned more than 24 million times. This immense distribution footprint has translated into staggering network utilization, with Hermes driving roughly 2.5% of all global AI token usage.

Despite its roots in the open-source community, where projects are typically built and shared freely without immediate commercial intent, Nous Research has quickly translated developer enthusiasm into robust business momentum. According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, the startup reached an annualized revenue run rate of approximately $36 million by mid-September 2026. Bolstered by its recent technological developments and expanding market reach, the company now projects that its annualized revenue will surpass the $100 million threshold before the end of 2026.

The newly secured $90 million in funding is earmarked primarily to fuel Nous Research’s strategic push into the corporate world. The centerpiece of this commercial expansion is an upcoming enterprise offering tentatively titled "Hermes for Businesses." This tailored product suite is designed to allow enterprise organizations to deploy customized, highly secure AI agents capable of handling complex, multi-step workflows. Crucially for corporate adoption, the platform aims to address mounting enterprise concerns regarding data governance by ensuring that proprietary company data remains private, secure, and protected against unauthorized exposure.

As artificial intelligence integration becomes a baseline requirement across industries, businesses have increasingly sought reliable agentic workflows that can autonomously execute complex tasks rather than merely answering isolated prompts. By bridging the gap between flexible open-source architectures and enterprise-grade security, Nous Research positions itself to capture a substantial share of the burgeoning enterprise automation market.

The backing from major technology players like Nvidia and Samsung further underscores the strategic importance of efficient, specialized AI agents in contemporary hardware and software ecosystems. With a valuation now standing at $1.5 billion, Nous Research transitions firmly out of its early-stage startup phase and into a critical scaling period, where its ability to commercialize open-source momentum will be rigorously tested against established enterprise software giants.