Nous Research Raises $90M to Bring Its Hermes AI Agent to Businesses
Nous Research has raised $90M to build a business version of its open-source AI agent, Hermes. Nvidia, Microsoft’s M12, Samsung, Robot Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator and Menlo Ventures are among the investors.
Key Takeaways:
- Since its February release, Hermes has been cloned over 24 million times, with approximately 22 million downloads on various platforms.
- The new funding round values Nous Research at $1.5 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.
- Nous aims to empower businesses by offering customizable AI models, private data handling, and ownership of company knowledge.
From Fine-Tuned Models to Business AI
Nous, formed in 2023, initially focused on fine-tuning Meta’s Llama models to reflect individual user perspectives. They also introduced YaRN, a method enabling open models to process longer context windows at lower costs.
Hermes, released under the MIT license in February, remembers projects, generates reusable skills as it works, and lets users select underlying models. It's compatible with macOS, Windows, Linux, and popular messaging apps.
The Future of AI in Business
The new funding will be used to develop Hermes for Businesses, allowing companies to:
- Choose models based on price and goals
- Maintain private AI usage
- Own their company knowledge
This investment follows a trend towards personal AI agents, with recent rounds raised by Instinct, Meta, and Nvidia.