The company is poised to secure nearly $500 million in fresh financing, according to sources who wish to remain anonymous due to the private nature of the information. Bain Capital Ventures, already an investor in Poolside, is in discussions to spearhead the investment round. The startup has not commented on the matter, and Bain Capital has also chosen not to provide any remarks. This significant investment in the emerging company highlights the ongoing interest from investors in AI startups, even as enthusiasm in the public markets for immediate returns from technology has somewhat diminished. Founded in early 2023 and based in Paris, Poolside was established by Jason Warner, the former CTO of GitHub, and Eiso Kant, a software entrepreneur. The startup moved to France last year after securing $126 million in seed funding, as reported. Other Paris-based startups, such as Mistral AI and H, have also garnered substantial venture capital aimed at developing generative AI models. Warner and Kant have kept details about their product and business strategy largely under wraps.

However, the company's website outlines ambitions to create the "most capable AI" for software coding, with plans to extend those capabilities into "other fields. " Currently, the startup is concentrating on attracting developers and has presented a demo of its code-generation product to potential investors, according to an informed source. Poolside's strategy is distinct from that of Mistral, which also provides a code-generation model but is mainly focusing on corporate clients, the source added. The market for tools that support and automate coding is increasingly competitive. Microsoft has introduced its Copilot coding assistant, developed by GitHub, which it acquired in 2018. Numerous other venture-backed companies, including Cognition AI and Mistral, are also working on similar functionalities. Poolside has entered into several agreements for access to formidable Nvidia GPUs through Iris Energy, an Australian data center firm that supplies computing resources for both Bitcoin mining and AI. (Updates include Bain Capital Ventures’ involvement in the second paragraph. )