Nous Research
Nous Research is a New York-based open-source AI research company (founded 2023) that develops the Hermes language models, the Hermes Agent autonomous framework, and the Psyche decentralized training network, serving developers, enterprises, and crypto firms via MIT-licensed distribution.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2023
- HeadquartersNew York, United States
- Headcount51–100
- GTM typeB2B and B2C
- OfferingSoftware
What Nous Research does
Nous Research is an American open-source AI company founded in 2023 and based in New York that trains world-class open-source language models and builds decentralized AI infrastructure. Its core technology stack comprises the Hermes model family (Hermes 3 at 8B/70B/405B parameters and Hermes 4.3 at 36B with 512K context), the Hermes Agent autonomous agent framework with persistent memory and closed-loop self-improvement, the Psyche decentralized training network (coordinated via Solana blockchain and built on the proprietary DisTrO optimizer), and NousCoder-14B for competitive programming. Research contributions include Token Superposition Training (2.5x pretraining speedup), Lighthouse Attention (1.4-1.7x speedup at long context), and Contrastive Neuron Attribution for behavior steering.
The company distributes its models under the MIT license through GitHub and HuggingFace, monetizing via FlyHermes managed cloud at $59/month, Nous Portal API access with a paid Tool Gateway tier, and Surf (a crypto analytics platform with its own $15M funding round). It serves developers, AI researchers, enterprise teams seeking self-hostable agents, and crypto/blockchain companies, with ecosystem integrations spanning Microsoft MXC, NVIDIA RTX Spark, Stripe Projects, Anthropic Claude, and xAI Grok. The company raised a $50M Series A led by Paradigm at a $1B valuation in April 2025, bringing cumulative funding to approximately $85M.
Its go-to-market is product-led and community-led, with 100,000+ GitHub stars, 295 contributors in peak release weeks, and Hermes Agent ranking #1 on OpenRouter with 224B daily tokens. Operating geographies are global with no geographic restrictions, and the company employs 11-50 people, suggesting exceptional technical productivity per employee but also limited commercial scale relative to its research output and valuation.
Nous Research firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Nous Research
- Legal name
- Nous Research
- Website
- https://nousresearch.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2023
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 51–100 employees
- Short description
- Nous Research is a New York-based open-source AI research company (founded 2023) that develops the Hermes language models, the Hermes Agent autonomous framework, and the Psyche decentralized training network, serving developers, enterprises, and crypto firms via MIT-licensed distribution.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Nous Research industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Open-Source AI Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (51321), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Scientific Research and Development Services (5417)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Foundation Model Developers (LLM/Multimodal Model Labs) (HDAAACAA)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Open-Source Model Ecosystems & Model Marketplaces (HDAAACAM), Model Hosting, Serving & Inference Platforms (HDAAACAB), On-Device/Edge Foundation Models (Mobile/Embedded LLMs) (HDAAACAN)
Keywords
Where Nous Research is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- New York
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Markets served
Nous Research business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B and B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Operations, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- FlyHermes Managed Service: Commercial managed offering for Hermes Agent at $59/month, providing fully managed cloud deployment with convenience and support.
- Nous Portal API Access: Paid API access to Hermes models and tools including Tool Gateway for automated tasks without additional credentials for paid users.
- Open Source Distribution: Core models and frameworks released under MIT license for free download and self-hosting, with revenue generated through optional premium services and compute partnerships.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Monthly | FlyHermes managed cloud service |
| Subscription | Monthly | Self-hosted on VPS |
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Nous Chat (Hermes 3 70B) |
| Subscription | Monthly | Nous Portal paid users |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels6 records
Marketing channels7 records
Nous Research product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Nous Research develops and distributes open-source large language models (Hermes 3, Hermes 4.3), autonomous AI agents (Hermes Agent), and decentralized AI training infrastructure (Psyche Network). The company releases its core models and frameworks under MIT license for free self-hosting, while generating commercial revenue through managed cloud services (FlyHermes at $59/month), API access (Nous Portal), and enterprise offerings.
Product overview
Nous Research is an American open-source AI company that trains world-class open-source language models and builds decentralized AI infrastructure. The core product portfolio includes Hermes Agent (an autonomous self-improving AI agent framework), the Hermes language model series (Hermes 3 and Hermes 4.3), NousCoder-14B (a competitive programming model), Psyche Network (decentralized training infrastructure), and Atropos (distributed RL coordination system). Supporting products include Forge Reasoning API, Nous Chat, FlyHermes managed cloud, Nous Portal, Surf (crypto analytics), and Simulators. The company raised $50M from Paradigm (April 2025) and $15M for Surf from Pantera Capital (December 2025).
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Hermes Agent: Open-source self-improving AI agent framework released February 2026 under MIT license, featuring persistent memory and autonomous skill generation
- Hermes 4
- Psyche
- NousCoder-14B
- Nous Portal
- Simulators
- Forge Reasoning API
- Atropos
- Lighthouse Attention
- Contrastive Neuron Attribution (CNA)
- Token Superposition Training
Quantifiable outcome
- 2.5x wall-clock pretraining speedup with Token Superposition Training
- +4 more outcomes
Companies that use Nous Research
Customer profileNamed customers3 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Nous Research technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration6 records
AI capability11 records
Feature10 records
Nous Research partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Three partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.
- FlashLabsminorTokyo-based company launched Hermes Agent for B2B sales platform FlashRev, expanding Hermes into multi-step workflow automation and remote computer access.
- Solana FoundationcorePsyche network uses Solana blockchain for coordination, providing fault-tolerant and censorship-resistant network for decentralized AI training. Smart contracts on Solana manage consensus state for training runs.
- Lambda LabscoreCompute partner for Forge Reasoning API Beta testing phase, providing GPU infrastructure for Nous Research's inference-time AI research.
Scale indicators10 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Nous Research competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Mistral AI: European open-weight foundation model developer offering competitive LLMs (Mistral, Mixtral) under permissive licenses. Direct comparable to Nous Research on open-source foundation model strategy, though Mistral operates a much larger commercial API business.
- DeepSeek: Chinese AI lab that has released strong open-source LLMs (DeepSeek-V3, R1) with cost-efficient training methodologies. Highly comparable to Nous on open-source model distribution and training efficiency breakthroughs, competing for the same developer mindshare.
- Hugging Face: Open-source AI platform hosting model weights (including Nous Research's models), serving as Nous' primary distribution channel. Competes for developer mindshare in the open-source AI community and increasingly develops its own models and inference offerings.
- Stability AI: Open-source generative AI company best known for Stable Diffusion. Highly comparable to Nous on open-source-first strategy, decentralized ethos, and developer-led distribution, though Stability focuses more on image/multimodal generation.
Broad incumbents
- Meta AI (LLaMA): Released the Llama family of open-source foundation models that Nous fine-tunes (Hermes 3 is built on Llama 3.1). Sets the baseline capability and licensing terms that Nous' derivatives compete against, and is the most important upstream dependency in the ecosystem.
- OpenAI: Frontier closed-source foundation model developer behind GPT-4/5. While not a direct open-source competitor, OpenAI sets the capability frontier that Nous' open models benchmark against, and Hermes MoA ensembles its models as part of Nous' product offering.
- Anthropic: Frontier closed-source AI lab behind Claude. Establishes the safety-aligned frontier against which Nous' "uncensored" positioning is differentiated, and Nous' Tool Search for MCP was validated on Claude Opus 4 / 4.5 as an integration showcase.
- Cohere: Enterprise-focused foundation model provider offering both open and proprietary models with emphasis on retrieval and agent capabilities. Overlaps with Nous on the enterprise agent and custom-model positioning but operates a larger commercial footprint.
Emerging players
- Together AI: Open-source AI cloud platform providing GPU clusters, inference APIs, and fine-tuning on top of open models. Comparable to Nous on serving open-source LLMs commercially and operating training infrastructure, but operates a centralized rather than decentralized stack.
- xAI: Elon Musk's AI lab behind Grok models. Comparable frontier-model competitor in some benchmarks and an integration partner of Hermes Agent via OAuth. Represents both a competitor and a channel partner depending on positioning.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Nous Research social profiles
Digital presenceNous Research financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Nous Research leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles3 records
Nous Research funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds3 records
Investors7 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Nous Research M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Nous Research
What does Nous Research do?
Nous Research develops and distributes open-source large language models (Hermes 3, Hermes 4.3), autonomous AI agents (Hermes Agent), and decentralized AI training infrastructure (Psyche Network). The company releases its core models and frameworks under MIT license for free self-hosting, while generating commercial revenue through managed cloud services (FlyHermes at $59/month), API access (Nous Portal), and enterprise offerings.
Is Nous Research a public or private company?
Nous Research is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Nous Research founded?
Nous Research was founded in 2023. It employs 51 to 100 people.
Where is Nous Research based?
Nous Research is headquartered in New York, United States, in the North America region.
How does Nous Research make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. FlyHermes Managed Service is the primary driver. The others are nous Portal API Access and open Source Distribution.
Who are Nous Research's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Mistral AI, DeepSeek, Hugging Face and Stability AI. Broad incumbents are Meta AI (LLaMA), OpenAI, Anthropic and Cohere. Emerging players are Together AI and xAI.
Does Nous Research have an API?
Yes. Forge Reasoning API Beta integrates multiple research breakthroughs including Hermes model family, Mixture of Agents, Chain of Code, and Monte Carlo Tree Search to create a comprehensive reasoning enhancement system. Supports multiple models (Hermes 3, Claude Sonnet 3.5, Gemini, GPT 4) and was in beta testing as of late 2024. Also: tinker-atropos integration layer between the Tinker API and Atropos RL framework (open-source GitHub: NousResearch/tinker-atropos). Hermes Agent exposes a Tool Gateway for paid Nous Portal users enabling agents to call tools without per-tool API keys. Developer documentation is at nousresearch.typeform.com/FORGEAPI.
What industry is Nous Research in?
Nous Research's product category is Open-Source AI Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAAACAA, Foundation Model Developers (LLM/Multimodal Model Labs), with a secondary code of HDAAACAM, Open-Source Model Ecosystems & Model Marketplaces. Its NAICS code is 51321 and its SIC code is 7372.