nous research raising at $1.5b valuation to take on openai agents

nous research is negotiating a $75 million+ funding round led by robot ventures with usv participation, valuing the company at $1.5 billion. this capital injection comes less than 90 days after its series a and targets the expansion of hermes, an open-source agent framework with 214,000 github stars that supports autonomous coding, image understanding, and local execution. nous differentiates itself with a decentralized hardware network and paid hosted tiers, competing with viral frameworks like openclaws. the deal underscores a shift in vc sentiment toward durable open-source infrastructures that offer users privacy and control over agentic workflows.