Choose Nous Research if you want an agent you can run yourself instead of renting one. Hermes Agent is free, learns skills from your own use, and is not tied to a single model vendor. The company is young, so treat enterprise promises and its own usage estimates, such as 24 million clones, as claims to test in a pilot.
Nous Research is an AI company started in 2023 by four co-founders. It builds Hermes Agent, an MIT-licensed, self-improving agent, plus Hermes Desktop and the Nous Portal service. Its stated mission is open access to intelligence, and it is launching Hermes for Businesses for enterprise teams.
Founded: 2023 · Funding: $158M total raised; $90M Series B led by Robot Ventures (Oct 2026), with Nvidia, USV, Menlo Ventures, Samsung, 1789 Capital · Valuation: $1.5B (Series B, Oct 2026)
About Nous Research
Nous Research is an open-source AI company founded in 2023 by Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, Ryan Teknium and Shivani Mitra, according to TechCrunch. Its site states the mission as creating and proliferating open access to intelligence, and says the company trains models, builds agents and develops infrastructure to speed up adoption of open AI. The research areas it lists are agents, model architecture, data synthesis, fine-tuning and reasoning.
The flagship product is Hermes Agent, an MIT-licensed open-source agent that Nous says has a built-in learning loop: it creates skills from experience and improves them during use. Nous released it weeks after OpenClaw went viral, and it shipped with built-in skills such as web search, coding and image understanding. Around the agent sit Hermes Desktop for Mac, Windows and Linux, a terminal install, and Nous Portal, the paid service that powers hosted Hermes. Beyond the agent, the company has released language models focused on coding and math.
On 7 October 2026 Nous confirmed a $90 million Series B at a $1.5 billion valuation, led by Robot Ventures with Nvidia, Union Square Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Samsung and 1789 Capital taking part. TechCrunch put total funding at $158 million. Before that round the company had raised about $70 million from investors including Paradigm, Robot Ventures, North Island Ventures, Delphi Ventures and OSS Capital, per Crunchbase data cited by TechCrunch.
The new capital funds Hermes for Businesses, an enterprise version for deploying customized agents on multi-step workflows while keeping company data private. The Wall Street Journal reported annualized revenue of roughly $36 million by mid-September 2026 and a company expectation of passing $100 million before the end of the year. Nous also estimates that Hermes has been cloned more than 24 million times and drives roughly 2.5% of global AI token usage. Both usage figures are the startup's own estimates and have not been independently audited.
On 16 October 2026 Nous said Hermes Agent is a launch partner for Nvidia's RTX Spark laptops, selectable in the built-in Windows agent setup flow. Hermes competes for developer attention with coding agents such as Claude Code from Anthropic, OpenCode and OpenHands. Its pitch against them is that it is free, open source, self-hosted and not tied to one model vendor. Buyers comparing it with OpenAI tooling should weigh that flexibility against the company's young age and the lack of a published compliance record.
Mission
Create and proliferate open access to intelligence.
Products
- Hermes Agent (Open-source AI agent): https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com
- Hermes Desktop (Desktop app): https://hermes-agent.nousresearch.com/#downloads
- Nous Portal (Hosted service): https://portal.nousresearch.com
- Hermes for Businesses (Enterprise agents): https://nousresearch.com
Links
Frequently Asked Questions
How much funding has Nous Research raised?
Nous Research has raised about $158 million in total, according to TechCrunch. Its latest round is a $90 million Series B confirmed on 7 October 2026, which values the company at $1.5 billion, with Robot Ventures as lead investor. Earlier investors include Paradigm, Delphi Ventures and OSS Capital.
What products does Nous Research make in 2026?
The main product is Hermes Agent, a free MIT-licensed agent you install from the terminal or the Hermes Desktop app. Nous Portal is the paid service behind hosted Hermes, which TechCrunch reported in July 2026 as tiers from $20 to $200 a month. Hermes for Businesses is the enterprise version announced alongside the Series B.
How does Nous Research handle data privacy and compliance?
HokAI found no public trust center, SOC 2 report or ISO certificate for Nous Research as of October 2026. Because Hermes Agent is open source and can be self-hosted, you can keep data on your own machine. Nous says Hermes for Businesses keeps company data private, so ask for written terms before a pilot.
Who are Nous Research's main competitors?
For agents, the closest rivals are OpenClaw, Claude Code and OpenCode. Hermes wins on price and openness, since it is free and works with different models. It loses to larger vendors on published security and compliance evidence, which matters for regulated buyers.
How do you start using Nous Research's products?
Install Hermes Agent from hermes-agent.nousresearch.com using the terminal command or the desktop download for Mac, Windows or Linux. If you do not want to host anything, sign in to Nous Portal and use the hosted version. Teams that want the enterprise version should contact Nous about Hermes for Businesses.