Nous Research下注开源智能体取胜：Hermes获得21.4万星，估值15亿美元

做的是什么生意

Nous Research is an open-source AI lab best known for Hermes, a locally run AI agent with built-in skills that users can run free on their own machines or rent as a cloud service for $20-$200 a month.

启动资金：About $70M raised before 2026, including a $50M Series A led by Paradigm (April 2025)

起因

Nous Research was founded in 2023 by Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, Ryan Teknium and Shivani Mitra as an open-source AI lab, later known for coding and math models and for the Hermes agent. Before the 2026 round it had raised about $70 million from backers including Paradigm, Robot Ventures, North Island Ventures, Delphi Ventures, OSS Capital and Balaji Srinivasan, including a $50 million Series A led by Paradigm in April 2025.

经过

Weeks after OpenClaw's locally run agent went viral, Nous released Hermes, an agent that runs on a desktop or VPS with built-in skills such as web search, coding and image understanding, and is designed to learn from usage and build new skills without manual intervention. Hermes grew to roughly 214,000 GitHub stars and nearly 40,000 forks, with users automating tasks and messaging agents through Telegram and Discord. Nous monetizes via a cloud-hosted version at $20-$200 a month. In July 2026, TechCrunch reported the company was finalizing a round of at least $75 million led by Robot Ventures, with USV participating, at a $1.5 billion valuation.

结果

Still operating and scaling; no exit. The $75M+ round was reported as finalizing in July 2026.

可借鉴之处

免费提供本地运行的智能体作为分销，收费提供云便利，并在病毒式竞争对手之后迅速跟进——开源成为护城河，而非弱点。