# Nvidia to Pay AI Startup Poolside $6 Billion for Model-Building Software

*2026-08-22 10:01 UTC · AI · 1 min read*

> Nvidia is paying $6 billion to license Poolside's AI model-building software and hiring 109 of its staff, while separately investing $1 billion in the startup at a $12 billion valuation.

Nvidia has struck a non-exclusive licensing deal worth $6 billion for Poolside's "Model Factory," the AI startup's platform for building coding-focused generative models, according to a letter to investors reported by Newcomer. Nvidia is separately investing $1 billion in Poolside at a $12 billion pre-money valuation, roughly four times the $3 billion mark the startup hit just last year.

As part of the arrangement, 109 Poolside employees who worked on the company's open-source Laguna model are receiving offers to join Nvidia. Poolside's three co-founders are staying put, and the company insists the deal is not an acquisition or acquihire. Poolside said it needed far more Nvidia hardware than it could otherwise access to keep competing in open-source model development.

The deal is the third time this year Nvidia has used this licensing-plus-hiring structure, following a reported $20 billion agreement with Groq and roughly $900 million with Enfabrica, pushing Nvidia's total commitment across the three deals to nearly $27 billion. Poolside's separate infrastructure arm is also building a 1.2-gigawatt data center in Texas.

## Sources

- [newcomer.co](https://www.newcomer.co/p/sources-poolside-strikes-6-billion)
- [thenextweb.com](https://thenextweb.com/news/nvidia-poolside-6bn-model-factory-licence)

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TechTools News · https://techtools.cz/tools/news/article/2233-nvidia-to-pay-ai-startup-poolside-6-billion-for-model-building-software
Česká verze: https://techtools.cz/tools/news/clanek/2306-nvidia-zaplati-ai-startupu-poolside-6-miliard-dolaru-za-software-na-tvorbu