Nous Research closes $90M Series B led by Robot Ventures at a reported $1.5B valuation

Nvidia, Microsoft's M12, Samsung, Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator and Menlo Ventures also took part, according to a note from CEO Dillon Rolnick on the company's website. The company did not disclose a valuation. The capital goes to Hermes for Businesses, which adds private deployment, single sign-on, auditing, workspace controls, shared team skills, cost visibility and service-level agreements. Nous says the first enterprise deployments are already underway. In July, reports said Nous was finalizing at least $75M at the same valuation, but that round had not closed. The company had raised about $70M before this round, so its total is now roughly $160M. Nous released the Hermes agent in February 2026 under the MIT license. The company says it has been cloned more than 24 million times and, by Nous's internal estimates, accounts for about 2.5% of global token usage. For founders, Nous is testing a specific question: can a free, permissively licensed agent support a $1.5B valuation? The agent stays free, and Nous charges for hosting, management, security, support and business deployment. If revenue tracks the forecast, open-core becomes a credible route for agent companies that compete with proprietary vendors.