Nvidia Pays $6B to License Poolside's Model Factory Plus $1B Equity Investment at $12B Valuation

Nvidia will pay $6 billion in a non-exclusive license for Poolside's Model Factory — the platform behind Poolside's Laguna family of open-weight coding models — and inject $1 billion at a $12 billion pre-money valuation. Nvidia is also making job offers to 109 Poolside employees, while the three co-founders stay in place; Poolside told investors the arrangement is 'not an acquisition or an acquihire.' The structure mirrors Nvidia's earlier Groq deal that lawmakers criticized as circumventing merger review.