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Startups & Venture·October 7, 2026·1 min read

North America’s Startup Funding Falls In Q3 As AI Giants Eye The Public Markets

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Q3’s 35% quarter-over-quarter funding drop—despite being 50% up year-over-year—suggests capital is pausing ahead of big AI IPOs, not disappearing. Early and mid-stage teams should plan for longer raise cycles and more structured terms while public-market pricing resets what “good” looks like.

Startups & Venture

Nous Research, which makes the open-source Hermes AI agent that has hit 22M+ downloads since February, raised $90M at a $1.2B valuation to expand to enterprises

A $90 million round at a $1.2 billion valuation on the back of 22 million Hermes downloads shows open-source agents are now credible enterprise contenders, not just hobbyist tools. If you’re buying assistants, you now have to weigh open-source stacks with services against closed platforms on control, cost, and roadmap leverage.