{"slug": "nvidia-is-acquiring-poolside-s-model-factory-and-109-employees-for-6-billion", "title": "Nvidia is acquiring Poolside's \"Model Factory\" and 109 employees for $6 billion", "summary": "Nvidia is paying $6 billion to license Poolside's 'Model Factory' software and extend job offers to 109 employees, according to an investor letter first reported by Newcomer. Nvidia is also investing $1 billion at a $12 billion pre-money valuation, while Poolside's three founders remain with the startup. The deal is structured as a licensing and hiring arrangement, not an acquisition or acquihire, and Poolside plans to distribute the $6 billion to its investors by the end of next year.", "body_md": "# Nvidia is acquiring Poolside's \"Model Factory\" and 109 employees for $6 billion\n\n**Nvidia is paying $6 billion for software that builds AI models from the startup Poolside, and it wants to bring on 109 employees.** That's according to an investor letter first reported by [Newcomer](https://www.newcomer.co/p/sources-poolside-strikes-6-billion).\n\nThe employees worked on the [Laguna](https://the-decoder.com/poolsides-laguna-s-2-1-is-a-small-open-weight-coding-model-that-punches-well-above-its-size/) model and are getting job offers from Nvidia. Nvidia is licensing the \"Model Factory,\" the system Poolside used to build its model. Nvidia builds its own [open AI models in the Nemotron line](https://the-decoder.com/nvidias-nemotron-4-aims-for-one-trillion-parameters-a-scale-chinese-labs-already-surpassed/), which puts it in competition with some of its own customers. On top of that, Nvidia is investing $1 billion at a $12 billion pre-money valuation. The three founders are staying on.\n\nThe deal is \"not an acquisition and it is not an acquihire,\" the letter says. An acquihire is a purchase driven mainly by the talent. These deals have become a go-to move for big tech companies looking to lock in technology, know-how, and staff without buying a company outright and triggering the regulatory reviews that can follow. Nvidia struck similar deals with [Groq](https://the-decoder.com/nvidias-20-billion-groq-deal-sure-looks-like-an-acquisition-as-90-percent-of-staff-moves-over/) ($20 billion) and [Enfabrica](https://the-decoder.com/nvidia-makes-900-million-acquihire-style-deal-with-ai-hardware-startup-enfabrica/) ($900 million).\n\nPoolside plans to distribute the $6 billion to its investors by the end of next year.\n\n```\nAI News Without the Hype – Curated by Humans\n\n\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to THE DECODER for ad-free reading, a weekly AI newsletter, our exclusive \"AI Radar\" frontier report six times a year, full archive access, and access to our comment section.\t\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe now\n```\n\n[Newcomer](https://www.newcomer.co/p/sources-poolside-strikes-6-billion)", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nvidia-is-acquiring-poolside-s-model-factory-and-109-employees-for-6-billion", "canonical_source": "https://the-decoder.com/nvidia-is-acquiring-poolsides-model-factory-and-109-employees-for-6-billion/", "published_at": "2026-08-21 08:27:23+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-21 08:43:45.858524+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-infrastructure", "ai-startups"], "entities": ["Nvidia", "Poolside", "Newcomer", "Laguna", "Nemotron", "Groq", "Enfabrica"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nvidia-is-acquiring-poolside-s-model-factory-and-109-employees-for-6-billion", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nvidia-is-acquiring-poolside-s-model-factory-and-109-employees-for-6-billion.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nvidia-is-acquiring-poolside-s-model-factory-and-109-employees-for-6-billion.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/nvidia-is-acquiring-poolside-s-model-factory-and-109-employees-for-6-billion.jsonld"}}