Nous Research Raised $90M to Sell Hermes Agent to Businesses. Can an Open-Source Agent Beat Microsoft Copilot Studio?

Nous Research said on 7 October 2026 that it raised $90 million to build Hermes for Businesses, a paid version of its open-source Hermes Agent. The Wall Street Journal reported a $1.5 billion valuation; Nous did not give one. The pitch is simple: a popular free agent, packaged with team controls, against big-vendor platforms such as Microsoft Copilot Studio.

What is Hermes for Businesses and who is it for?

Hermes for Businesses is the commercial layer Nous Research is building on top of Hermes Agent, which the company says is free and open source under the MIT license. It targets teams that want a shared AI agent without wiring up models, billing and tools themselves.

Nous's Business page describes "a self-improving agent for every team member." It is already live in two tiers: a self-serve Business tier and an Enterprise tier sold through sales. Both are company descriptions, not independent reviews. Last checked: 12 October 2026.

Who is behind Nous Research and how much did it raise?

Nous Research was formed in 2023, according to The Next Web. It started by fine-tuning Meta's Llama models and published YaRN, a long-context method. CEO Dillon Rolnick signed the fundraise note.

The note names NVIDIA, Microsoft's M12, Samsung, Robot Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Y Combinator and Menlo Ventures "among others." RuntimeWire calls the round a Series B and says the money funds enterprise tools and a planned mobile app. Nous's own note does not use the Series B label and does not state a valuation or a lead investor.

How popular is Hermes Agent really?

Nous says Hermes has been cloned over 24 million times and drives approximately 2.5% of all global token usage. Both figures are company claims. The Journal, as relayed by The Next Web, reported more than 22 million downloads since February.

Clones and downloads are different measures, and neither counts paying teams. RuntimeWire makes the same point: GitHub interest alone does not establish customer demand. Treat the numbers as proof of developer attention, not of enterprise revenue.

What are Hermes for Businesses' key features?

The Business tier centres on shared skills, pooled spend and team administration. The Enterprise tier adds identity and deployment control. All of the following comes from Nous's Business page and is the company's description.

Nous's page lists SSO and private deployment under Enterprise only. The page does not mention audit logs; the closest feature is cost visibility, where "you see every dollar in the portal."

How much does Hermes for Businesses cost?

Nous does not publish a dollar price for the Business tier, and Enterprise shows "Contact us." What is public is the individual Nous Portal subscription, which a team can use as a reference point. Prices as of 12 October 2026:

Each paid tier lists 200+ models, hosted tool usage and high rate limits. Tool usage and model usage draw from the same credit balance. The agent software itself costs nothing under the MIT license, so the spend is inference, hosted tools and any Nous-hosted servers. Last checked: 12 October 2026.

How much does Microsoft Copilot Studio cost?

Microsoft lists tenant-wide packs of 25,000 Copilot Credits at $200.00 per pack per month. Pay-as-you-go needs no up-front license commitment but requires a linked Azure subscription, and a prepurchase plan can save up to 20%. Credits per action vary by task complexity.

Microsoft's licensing page says the billing unit changed from messages to Copilot Credits on 1 September 2025, with no change in pack quantity or pay-as-you-go rate. It also says that usage beyond purchased capacity can result in service denial, which matters for agents facing customers. Agents used inside Microsoft 365 Copilot by licensed users are included in that license, per Microsoft. Prices as of 12 October 2026.

Hermes for Businesses vs Copilot Studio: which should you use?

Choose Copilot Studio if your company already runs on Microsoft 365 and Entra ID. Choose Hermes for Businesses if you want model freedom and an agent you could, in principle, run on your own hardware. The comparison below uses only what each vendor says about itself.

Where Hermes for Businesses could win

Self-hosting is the clearest edge. If a legal or security team insists that data stay on infrastructure the company controls, an MIT-licensed core is easier to defend than a closed platform. Shared skills are the second: one person's workflow becomes a team library, which is a behaviour change rather than a feature checkbox.

Where Copilot Studio still wins

Governance depth and procurement. Entra ID, Purview audit trails, per-group budgets and application lifecycle promotion from development to production are documented on Microsoft's pages. A buyer can also read a price list. Nous's Enterprise tier is "Contact us," and its SLA terms are not published.

Is Hermes for Businesses worth trying?

For a small team already using Slack, Telegram or Discord, the self-serve Business tier is cheap to evaluate, since individual Portal plans start at $20 a month. Run a pilot with a spend cap and see whether the shared skill library gets used.

For a regulated or Microsoft-centric enterprise, wait. SSO, SLA terms and on-prem pricing are only available through sales, and there is no public audit-log documentation. Copilot Studio is the lower-risk choice today. That could change, but the evidence for it is a funding announcement, not customer references.

What's still unclear?

• Valuation. The $1.5 billion figure comes from the Wall Street Journal. Nous did not state it.
• Round label. Only RuntimeWire calls the round a Series B. Nous's note says "raised $90 million."
• Enterprise pricing and SLAs. Both are undisclosed. The Business tier also shows no dollar price.
• Audit logs. Nous's page does not mention them, and compliance buyers will ask.
• Customer proof. Nous has not named any paying customers. Clone and download counts measure interest, not retention.
• Fit of the comparison. Copilot Studio is a low-code builder inside Microsoft's stack. Hermes for Businesses is a ready-made agent for teams. They overlap on "company agent," but a buyer may need one for different jobs than the other.