Nvidia Invests $1B in Poolside AT $12B VAlUATION

Last Month, Nvidia has agreed to pay Poolside $6 billion to license the company's AI model-training system, alongside a separate $1 billion investment at a $12 billion pre-money valuation. Nvidia will also extend job offers to more than 100 Poolside employees. Poolside continues to operate independently, with its founders remaining in placE. BLOOMBERG; WSJ

Poolside is a San Francisco-based AI startup founded in 2023 by Jason Warner and Eiso Kant (above), that builds AI models purpose-built for software engineering. Rather than general-purpose language models, they focus specifically on coding: their models learn through trial and error to navigate ambiguity in software development, aiming to understand not just code but system architecture, development processes, and how software maps to business logic.

This represents a 4x step-up for the 7GC II portfolio, who invested in Poolside's Series B in October 2024, when the round valued the company at $3 billion.

Earlier this year, Poolside had a difficult stretch as its "Project Horizon" data center plan in Texas collapsed, after anchor tenant CoreWeave exited and a parallel $2 billion Series C fell through. The Nvidia agreement marks a stronger, better-capitalized turn, with a top-tier strategic partner now directly aligned with Poolside's technology.

Poolside appears to be sharpening its focus on compute infrastructure through Poolside Infrastructure Company (PIC), which continues building a Texas data center under new leadership, while product development continues with the recent open-weights Laguna S 2.1 release.