Nvidia pays $6B for Poolside AI model license, adds $1B investment and 109 job offers

Bloomberg reported on August 22 that Nvidia has agreed to pay $6 billion to AI coding startup Poolside for an AI model use license and will simultaneously extend job offers to 109 Poolside employees. Citing unnamed sources familiar with the discussions, the report said Nvidia will separately invest $1 billion in Poolside at a $12 billion pre-money valuation as part of a strategic investment. Existing Poolside shareholders will receive a payout funded by Nvidia money. Poolside itself continues to operate independently, with all three cofounders remaining. The deal is explicitly not framed as an acquisition or talent-acquisition.

Poolside is headquartered in the US with a Paris office and focuses on AI models for computer-programming automation, especially for government and defense software. The company closed a $500 million Series B from Bain Capital Ventures earlier this year; it began as a code agent, expanded to data centers, and later released its open-weight "Laguna" model family running on Nvidia server chips. The $6 billion license proceeds are expected to be distributed to Poolside's existing investors by late next year.

The structure echoes Nvidia's earlier reported $20 billion deal to license Groq chip designs and absorb most of Groq's employees and founders. Such license-plus-equity-plus-talent structures have drawn criticism from some US lawmakers, who argue the arrangements effectively circumvent merger-control review. Nvidia faces growing regulatory scrutiny as similar deals accumulate.