Nous Research has raised $90 million to expand its work on open AI models and agents, including a planned enterprise offering built around Hermes Agent. The financing gives the open-source AI developer fresh backing and a stated route into business use, though the enterprise product is still a plan, not a launch.
Nous/Hermes Watch analysis
What happened
Pulse 2.0 reports that the round included NVIDIA, Microsoft’s M12, Samsung, Robot Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator and Menlo Ventures, among other investors. Nous was founded in 2023 and has worked on open models, fine-tuning and tools including Hermes Agent.
The company plans to use the funding to develop Hermes for Businesses. It says the platform is intended to let organisations manage their own AI infrastructure, choose models based on cost and performance, retain institutional knowledge and scale deployments privately. Those are stated aims; the report does not give a launch date or product details.
Nous also says Hermes has been cloned more than 24 million times and estimates that it accounts for about 2.5% of global token usage. The latter is the company’s internal estimate, not an independently established measure of market share.
Why it matters
The proposed business product puts a practical question behind the open-AI argument: can organisations get more control over models, infrastructure and accumulated knowledge without taking on an unmanageable operating burden? A $90 million round gives Nous room to pursue that market, but funding is not proof that the product or its economics will work.
Our read
The most consequential part is not the investor roll-call; it is the planned move from an open agent used by developers towards a product for organisations. Nous has named the intended controls, but buyers will need specifics on deployment, security, support and cost before they can judge the offer. For now, this is a sizeable bet on open AI becoming something businesses can run and manage themselves.
What to watch
- When Hermes for Businesses is announced, and what it actually includes.
- Which models and deployment options organisations will be able to choose.
- Whether Nous publishes evidence behind its Hermes usage estimates.
Discussion spark: For business AI, which should matter most: control over models and data, lower cost, or a provider taking responsibility for the whole service?
Sources and evidence
- Nous Research Raises $90 Million From NVIDIA, M12, Samsung, And Other Investors – Pulse 2.0 (11 October 2026, 17:57 UTC)
Nous/Hermes Watch is independently operated by WittyWires. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Nous Research.