Nous Research Confirms $1.5B Valuation as It Takes Hermes Agent Into Business Workflows

Nous Research has raised $90 million in a Series B round at a $1.5 billion valuation, according to TechCrunch, as the developer of Hermes Agent moves from a developer-focused audience into enterprise software. The financing gives the three-year-old startup $158 million in total funding and supports a new offering called “Hermes for Businesses.”

The company says the business product will let organizations deploy customized AI agents for multi-step workflows while keeping company data private and secure. That strategy places Nous Research in a crowded market of vendors attempting to turn AI agents from individual productivity tools into systems that can operate across business processes.

A major funding round for an open-source agent developer

The Series B was led by Robot Ventures, with participation from Nvidia, Union Square Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Samsung, and 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, TechCrunch reported. The round confirms an earlier valuation report and gives Nous Research additional capital to expand beyond its existing user base.

Hermes Agent is open source and has gained traction among developers and individual users. TechCrunch reported that it has been cloned more than 24 million times. Nous Research estimates that Hermes accounts for approximately 2.5% of global AI token usage, although that figure comes from the startup rather than an independent measurement.

The funding arrives as investors continue to favor companies building agent infrastructure and applications. In Nous Research’s case, the appeal is tied not only to the popularity of its agent, but also to the possibility that an open-source project can become a controlled deployment platform for businesses.

Hermes moves toward enterprise deployment

“Hermes for Businesses” is intended to support customized agents that can execute multi-step tasks. The available reporting does not specify which business systems the agents will connect to, what model choices customers will have, how deployment will be managed, or whether the product will be offered as a hosted service, a self-managed package, or both.

Those details will matter to enterprise buyers. A business agent is judged less by whether it can complete an isolated task than by whether it can reliably work across applications, respect permissions, preserve audit trails, and stop when an action requires human approval. Data handling and deployment controls will also be central for customers operating under regulatory or contractual restrictions.

Nous Research’s open-source background could give customers more visibility into the technology than a closed assistant typically offers. It may also create additional responsibilities for buyers, including model operations, security review, version management, and support. The company will need to show how Hermes for Businesses balances customization with predictable behavior.

What the available evidence shows

The funding, valuation, investor list, and planned enterprise offering are reported by TechCrunch. The article also cited a Wall Street Journal report saying Nous Research had approximately $36 million in annualized revenue by mid-September 2026 and expected to exceed $100 million before the end of the year. Those revenue figures were not independently detailed in the available source material and should be treated as reported expectations rather than established results.

The adoption signals are similarly company-reported. Nous Research’s estimate of 24 million Hermes Agent clones does not necessarily represent 24 million active users or production deployments. Likewise, the estimate of 2.5% of global AI token usage depends on how the company defines and measures token consumption.

That distinction is important as the startup enters enterprise sales. Clones, token usage, and developer interest can indicate technical reach, but they do not by themselves demonstrate reliable business automation, customer retention, or willingness to pay for managed deployments.

Why the shift matters for builders and enterprises

For AI builders, the announcement illustrates one route from open-source distribution to commercial infrastructure. A widely used agent can create a developer community, generate real-world feedback, and establish a base for paid controls and deployment services. The challenge is converting that reach into workflows where errors have operational or financial consequences.

Product teams evaluating Hermes for Businesses will likely focus on integration depth, observability, access controls, data isolation, and the ability to test agent behavior before production use. They will also need clear answers about model costs. Multi-step agents can consume more tokens than simple chat interactions, and the economics of an enterprise workflow depend on how often agents retry, call tools, or escalate to people.

For Nous Research, the competitive question is whether its open-source position can support enterprise trust without slowing the company’s commercial execution. Established cloud providers and specialist agent platforms already compete for the same buyers, often offering bundled identity, security, monitoring, and application integrations. Nous Research will need to demonstrate a distinctive advantage in customization, control, price, or agent performance.

What to watch next

The first signal will be the product’s actual deployment model and pricing. Enterprise buyers will want to know whether they can run Hermes inside their own environment, select models, and retain control over sensitive data.

Other important signals include named customer deployments, independent evidence of production usage, and technical documentation covering permissions, logging, evaluation, and human oversight. Revenue growth will also be worth tracking, particularly whether the reported expectation of more than $100 million in 2026 reflects recurring enterprise contracts or broader usage across the company’s products.

Finally, the market will be watching whether Hermes Agent’s open-source reach translates into business retention. A large developer footprint is valuable, but enterprise adoption will depend on dependable outcomes and manageable operational risk.

Creati.ai perspective

Nous Research is making a credible but unproven transition: using an open-source agent’s developer traction as the foundation for an enterprise product. The $1.5 billion valuation signals strong investor confidence, but it does not resolve the harder questions around reliability, governance, integration, and customer economics.

The significance of Hermes for Businesses will therefore be measured in production workflows rather than clone counts. If Nous can preserve the flexibility that attracted developers while adding the controls enterprises require, it could become a notable bridge between open-source AI agents and commercial automation. If not, the funding may primarily have rewarded market momentum before enterprise demand is fully demonstrated.