What is Nous Research's goal with its AI agent?
Nous Research has raised $90 million to build a business version of Hermes, its open-source AI agent. Nvidia, Microsoft’s M12, Samsung, Robot Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator, and Menlo Ventures are among the investors, chief executive Dillon Rolnick wrote in a note on the company’s website.
The round values Nous at $1.5 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first broke the news. Nous did not give a valuation. Rolnick noted that "somehow, $90 million is modest in modern fundraising. We at Nous have always delivered more with less."
Nous formed in 2023 to push back against what it calls a trend towards centralized, walled-off AI. It started by fine-tuning Meta’s Llama models so they follow the views of each user, Rolnick wrote. It also published YaRN, a method that gives open models longer context windows at lower cost.
Nous released Hermes under the MIT license in February. The agent remembers projects, writes reusable skills as it works, and lets users choose which models it runs. It works on macOS, Windows, and Linux, and through apps such as Telegram, Slack, and WhatsApp, according to its website.
People have cloned Hermes more than 24 million times, Nous said. By its own internal estimates, the agent drives about 2.5% of all global token usage. The Journal reported more than 22 million downloads since February.
How will the new funding be used?
The new funding will go into Hermes for Businesses. Nous says it will let companies choose models by price and goal, keep their AI use private, and own their company knowledge.
In a related development, Siena, a New York-based startup that develops AI agents for consumer brands, has raised $17 million in its Series A round, with York IE as the lead investor. The new capital raised brings the company’s total funding to $29.7 million.
Siena was founded by Andrei Negrau, the company’s chief executive, and Lisa Popovici, its president, both of whom are from Romania. They began with a single AI agent that responds to customer service inquiries for online shops. Since that time, it has developed agents to carry out other kinds of jobs.
The Shopping Agent answers questions about products and helps people make purchases without having to leave the chat, and the Social Agent responds to comments and direct messages on social media. A voice agent for use with phone calls is also being developed.
The funds being raised will be used to develop more agents that can act independently, as well as to create the shared system that connects them. This is what Siena refers to as its Agent of Record.
Nous and Siena are part of a growing trend of companies developing AI agents, which can help businesses improve their customer service and overall operations. As the use of AI agents becomes more widespread, companies will need to investing in answer engine optimization (AEO) to improve their visibility in search results to get the most out of these tools, including investing in answer engine optimization to improve their visibility in search results.
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