Tech
Hermes agent maker Nous Research in talks for new funding at $1.5B valuation
Nous Research, the startup behind the open-source Hermes agent, is finalizing a new round of funding led by Robot Ventures, with significant participation from USV and other prominent investors at a $1.5 billion valuation, according to three sources with knowledge of the deal. The company is raising at least $75 million, and fielded a high level of interest from investors, according to the people.
Nous Research declined to comment. USV and Robot Ventures didn’t respond to our request for comment.
The company was founded in 2023 by Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, Ryan Teknium, Shivani Mitra. Before this round, it had raised a total of $70 million in funding from investors including Paradigm, Robot Ventures, North Island Ventures, OSS Capital, and Balaji Srinivasan, according to Crunchbase.
Weeks after Openclaw’s agent went viral, Nous Research released its own competitor called Hermes. OpenClaw is an agent that runs locally on a PC and can perform tasks on behalf of the user. One key difference is that Hermes shipped with built-in “skills,” such as web search, coding and image understanding. Furthermore, it was designed to automatically learn from people’s usage and build more skills without manual intervention. Additionally, the startup has released language models focused on coding and math.
Just like Openclaw, users can automate tasks with Hermes and chat with these agents or receive messages from them in apps like Telegram and Discord. These tools have become increasingly popular as they allow users to run their AI agents remotely and around the clock.
Open-source and widely adopted, Hermes has amassed a massive following on GitHub, boasting roughly 214,000 stars and nearly 40,000 forks. Developers can run Hermes on a desktop or on a virtual private server.
But Nous Research also offers a cloud-hosted version, which some users may find to be more user-friendly, avoiding any setting up on their own machines. The hosted version is available via various paid tiers ranging from $20-$200 a month.
Sources say the new funding will help to expand Hermes’ products and business model further.
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Tech
Spotify expands parent-managed accounts to users on its free tier
Spotify announced on Wednesday that it’s bringing parent-managed accounts for kids to its free tier. Families in the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, and the Netherlands can now create a “Managed Account” for their child, a feature previously available only to paid subscribers.
“Managed Accounts,” which launched in 2024, is a shared account feature that allows parents to control what their children listen to.
Because these accounts are separate, kids’ music choices won’t impact their parents’ algorithm or show up in their annual Spotify Wrapped experience. Children can add songs to their favorites, create their own playlists, and have their own personalized recommendations.
The expansion of Managed Accounts to free users reflects broader efforts by major tech companies to give parents greater control over how their children use online platforms, and which features are available to them in response to regulatory pressure.
With Managed Accounts, parents can control and restrict playback of specific artists and songs. By default, children can’t listen to music labeled as explicit, and video playback is also disabled by default. Interactivity features are also limited on managed accounts, which means that kids don’t get access to age-gated features like Messages.
Managed Accounts give parents more granular control over the music their child can listen to, without requiring them to use the more restrictive Spotify Kids app.
To set up the managed account, Family Plan account holders need to navigate to their account pages in the app, select the “Add a Member” option, and tap the “Add a listener aged under 13 (or the market equivalent)” option. From there, parents will be guided through some steps to get their child’s account set up, including choosing a display name and setting up content preferences. Parents have the option to make adjustments at any time.
Spotify says it plans to bring Managed Accounts to more countries soon.
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Tech
Apple Intelligence approved for launch in China with Alibaba’s Qwen AI
Apple Intelligence, the iPhone maker’s generative AI offering, is coming to China. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that China’s regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China, approved Apple’s AI services in the country, on the back of a deal to integrate Alibaba’s Qwen AI model into Apple’s operating systems, including iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS.
The deal, which was rumored to be in the works last year, marks an important step for Apple’s AI ambitions in a key market. In the second quarter, Apple sales in Greater China increased 28% to $20.5 billion. Apple also recently regained the No. 2 position in China’s smartphone market after a recent shopping festival offered discounts on the iPhone lineup.
Prior to working with Alibaba, Apple was reportedly exploring a deal with Baidu, but faced issues adapting its models for Chinese customers. It also explored integrations with DeepSeek and with models from ByteDance, reports claimed. This led to delays in getting Apple Intelligence features, which debuted in 2024, to the Chinese market.
Alibaba confirmed the company’s news to CNBC in a statement, saying that Qwen would be “integrated into Apple Intelligence experiences,” but did not provide a timeframe. It also said the integrations would involve AI capabilities like “text and image understanding and generation.”
U.S. shares of Alibaba rose 4% in pre-market trading on news of the deal, and are now up by over 6%, as of the time of publication.
Tech
Stripe and Advent reportedly offered to buy PayPal for around $53.4B
Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have reportedly submitted a joint bid to acquire PayPal in a deal valued at approximately $53.4 billion.
Reuters reports that the offer was submitted earlier this month and is backed by roughly $50 billion in committed bank financing. Under the proposal, Stripe and Advent would jointly own PayPal, with each holding an equal stake.
This isn’t the first time Stripe has been linked with a potential acquisition of the payments giant. Earlier reports in February suggested the company had been exploring a possible takeover and was engaged in preliminary discussions, although no formal proposal emerged at the time.
If completed, the acquisition would unite two of the biggest names in digital payments. PayPal serves around 440 million active accounts and handles roughly $1.8 trillion in payment volume during 2025. Meanwhile, businesses use Stripe to process $1.9 trillion in payments over the same period. Plus, Stripe’s valuation climbed to $159 billion earlier this year.
PayPal has yet to respond publicly to the offer.
The potential deal comes at a pivotal time for PayPal. CEO Enrique Lores took over in March following a company profit warning. Since then, there have been plans to cut at least $1.5 billion in costs over the next two to three years as PayPal looks to return to stronger growth. Reports have also suggested the company intends to reduce its workforce by around 20%.
PayPal, Stripe and Advent International did not immediately respond to our requests for comment.
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Spotify expands parent-managed accounts to users on its free tier
