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.
