Nous Research hits $1.5B valuation with AI agent push

nous research, a three-year-old startup, has confirmed a $1.5 billion valuation with a $90 million series b funding round. the round was led by robot ventures, with participation from nvidia, union square ventures, menlo ventures, samsung, and 1789 capital. the startup's open-source hermes agent has been cloned over 24 million times, driving 2.5% of global ai token usage. nous research will use the funds to launch 'hermes for businesses', allowing companies to deploy customized ai agents for multi-step workflows while keeping data private and secure. the startup had $36 million in annualized revenue by mid-september 2026 and expects to pass $100 million by the end of 2026.