Nous Research is taking its open-source Hermes agent into the enterprise market. The startup says its new “Hermes for Businesses” offering will let companies deploy customized AI agents for multi-step workflows while keeping their data private and secure.
A new financing round for Nous Research
The company raised a $90 million Series B at a $1.5 billion valuation. Robot Ventures led the round, with participation from Nvidia, Union Square Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Samsung, and 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner.
The financing brings the three-year-old startup’s total funding to $158 million. The money is intended to support its push into the enterprise sector, marking a new direction for a product that has been popular among developers and individuals.
The size of the round and the stated valuation signal that investors are backing Nous Research as it looks to expand beyond its existing audience. The company’s next challenge is to make Hermes useful to businesses with needs that differ from those of individual users.
From an open-source agent to company workflows
Nous Research describes Hermes for Businesses as a way for companies to deploy customized AI agents. The agents are meant to handle multi-step workflows, rather than a single isolated task, and the company says businesses can keep their data private and secure.
Those are the product’s central promises in the announcement: customization, workflow support, and data privacy and security. The source does not detail how the service will be configured, which workflows it will support, or what safeguards it will use. Those specifics will matter to companies assessing whether the offering fits their operations.
Moving into enterprise use also changes the questions customers are likely to ask. Companies considering an agent for work across several steps will need to understand how it handles their processes and information. Nous Research’s stated focus on customization and private, secure data speaks to those concerns, though further product details are not provided in the announcement.
Hermes already has a developer following
The startup says the open-source Hermes agent has been cloned more than 24 million times. According to the startup’s estimates, it drives roughly 2.5% of global AI token usage.
Those figures describe the reach Nous Research attributes to Hermes today; they are not measures of the new business product’s adoption. Still, they help explain the foundation the company hopes to build on as it moves toward enterprise customers. An agent known among developers and individuals gives Nous Research an existing product and audience to carry into its next phase.
The shift also puts a different emphasis on the same technology. Individual and developer use has helped make Hermes popular, while the business offering is framed around customized agents and multi-step company workflows. The announcement presents enterprise expansion as the use for the new financing, but it does not say how quickly businesses will adopt the product.
Revenue expectations raise the stakes
Nous Research was at roughly $36 million in annualized revenue by mid-September 2026, according to The Wall Street Journal’s report cited in the article. The company expects to pass $100 million before the end of 2026.
That expectation gives the enterprise push additional context: the startup is pursuing a new customer segment while projecting substantial revenue growth. The figures are reported revenue and a company expectation, respectively; the source does not say how much of either is tied to Hermes for Businesses.
For now, the announcement establishes the direction of travel. Nous Research has raised fresh capital, described a business-focused version of Hermes, and pointed to existing usage and revenue as context for its plans. Whether customized agents for multi-step workflows become a significant part of the company’s business will depend on what the product delivers and how companies respond.