Nous Research in talks to raise $75M+ at a $1.5B valuation for its open-source Hermes agent

TechCrunch·high signal

Nous Research, maker of the open-source Hermes agent (~214K GitHub stars, ~40K forks), is finalizing a round led by Robot Ventures with USV participation at a $1.5B valuation, raising at least $75M — less than three months after a $50M Series A. Founded in 2023, it now sells a cloud-hosted Hermes across paid tiers ($20–$200/mo), signaling that open-weight agent runtimes are becoming venture-scale businesses, not just community projects. For builders, it's a credible fully-open alternative to closed agent stacks with a real hosting path.