Decentralized AI project Nous Research in talks to raise $75M at $1.5B valuation: report

Nous Research, the open-source AI lab behind the Hermes agent, is finalizing a funding round of at least $75 million led by Robot Ventures at a $1.5 billion valuation.

USV is participating alongside other investors, and the raise drew strong investor interest, TechCrunch reported Monday, citing unnamed inside sources. The $1.5 billion figure marks a sharp step up for a startup that closed a $50 million Series A led by Paradigm just over a year ago, The Block reported in April 2025, a deal that valued its yet-to-launch token at $1 billion.

Nous Research was founded in 2023 by Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, Ryan Teknium, and Shivani Mitra. The project's total funding before the current round reportedly stood at around $70 million, from backers including Paradigm, Robot Ventures, North Island Ventures, OSS Capital, and Balaji Srinivasan.

Hermes competes directly with OpenClaw, the agent that runs locally on a user's PC and executes tasks on their behalf.

Nous Research released Hermes weeks after OpenClaw's agent went viral, shipping it with built-in skills spanning web search, coding, and image understanding, and designing it to learn from usage and build new skills on its own.

The agent has drawn a large developer following, with roughly 214,000 stars and nearly 40,000 forks on GitHub, per the report. Users can run it on a desktop or a virtual private server, or opt for a cloud-hosted version priced at tiers ranging from $20 to $200 per month.

Hermes users can automate tasks and exchange messages with agents through apps, including Telegram and Discord, as well as tools that let them run agents remotely around the clock. The new capital will go toward expanding Hermes' products and business model, sources told TechCrunch.