The AI startup Nous Research is reportedly negotiating a new funding round of at least $75 million, according to a report by TechCrunch. The valuation of the company behind the open AI agent Hermes is expected to rise from around $1 billion to $1.5 billion. The investment firm Robot Ventures is said to be leading the round, with Union Square Ventures participating as another investor.
Hermes combines web search, code, and image analysis in one agent
Nous Research was founded in 2023 by Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, Ryan Teknium, and Shivani Mitra. The company develops the open-source agent Hermes, which has capabilities such as web search, programming, and image understanding built-in. The agent also self-learns skills from usage and improves them over time.
The project has around 210,000 stars and more than 38,000 forks in the GitHub repository, metrics for the distribution and reuse of an open-source project. Users can access Hermes either for free as an open-source version or for a monthly fee as a cloud version with more computing power and access to over 200 language models.
In early June 2026, Nous Research released Hermes Desktop, an independent application for macOS, Windows, and Linux. It brings the agent, which had primarily been operated via the command line until then, to the home computer, with the source code available under the MIT license. The application was first showcased in the GTC keynote by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, as the company announced on X, before it went into public preview in June.
Valuation would be one and a half times higher than in Series A
In April 2025, the investment firm Paradigm led a Series A round of $50 million and valued Nous Research at around $1 billion at that time. North Island Ventures, OSS Capital, and investor Balaji Srinivasan also participated in the round. The total funding thus amounted to about $70 million before the current round. The now reported valuation of $1.5 billion has not been independently verified.
Nous Research is also known for the decentralized training network Psyche, which aggregates computing power from distributed participants for training AI models. This approach has connected the company with crypto-related investors like Paradigm. Such funds specializing in digital assets are currently investing larger shares of new capital in AI and agent software, as the traditional crypto business is losing momentum. Just on July 8, 2026, Paradigm itself introduced a new fund of $1.2 billion with an explicit AI focus. Nous Research, Robot Ventures, and Union Square Ventures did not comment on inquiries from TechCrunch regarding the current round.
It remains unclear whether the round will take place as reported or whether it will be structured again through crypto-related investors. An official closing with confirmed figures from all sides is still pending.
