Poolside’s $3 Billion AGI Dream Could Redefine How Software Is Built

What if the gap between human intelligence and machines could vanish? For Poolside, this isn’t just a hypothetical—it’s their ultimate mission. Founded in April 2023 by Jason Warner, the former Chief Technology Officer of GitHub, and software entrepreneur Eiso Kant, Poolside is a Paris-based startup with one audacious goal: to create the most capable artificial intelligence for software development and pave the way toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

The company’s vision is bold and unapologetic. “Poolside’s in the race towards AGI. We think the future is going to play out that the gap between machine intelligence and human-level capabilities is going to continue to decrease,” said the founders.

In less than two years, Poolside has captured global attention, securing $126 million in seed funding, relocating to France, and now reportedly raising another $500 million at a $3 billion valuation—all before launching its first product. Investors like Bain Capital Ventures are already lining up, signaling unwavering confidence in the company’s disruptive potential.

Building AI for Code

At its heart, Poolside is rethinking software development. The company is crafting proprietary AI tools to automate and enhance coding, setting itself apart in an already crowded market. Competitors like Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot and startups such as Cognition AI and Mistral AI are vying for dominance, but Poolside’s approach is distinct.

Their strategy involves developing large-scale AI models specifically optimized for coding tasks. These models use “reinforcement learning from code execution feedback,” an innovative technique that teaches AI to refine its solutions by learning from both success and failure.

“We have an environment with 130,000 real-world code bases, several orders of magnitude the largest environment in the world, and we send the model off to explore different solutions to sets of tasks and learn from when it actually passes the test versus when it doesn’t,” explained the founders.

A Data-Driven Foundation

Data is the lifeblood of Poolside’s operations. The company employs a balanced 50-50 split between code and natural language data, capturing the full spectrum of reasoning and problem-solving involved in software development.

“The missing data set in the world to go from where models are today to being as capable as humans at building software is the data set that represents being given the task, all of your intermediate reasoning and thinking, the steps that you do, the code that you write and try to run and then it fails, and you learn from that,” the founders emphasized.

To expand their datasets, Poolside also employs synthetic data generation techniques and focuses on capturing intermediate reasoning steps that are often overlooked by other models.

Scaling Infrastructure with Strategic Partnerships

Poolside’s ambitions are matched by its infrastructure investments. The startup recently activated 10,000 Nvidia GPUs to power its large-scale models, a feat made possible through a critical partnership with Iris Energy Ltd., an Australian data center company specializing in AI and Bitcoin mining.

Beyond this, Poolside has strategically partnered with AWS, enabling seamless integration of cloud solutions into their AI infrastructure. This collaboration ensures Poolside can scale its operations efficiently and securely, positioning them to support a global user base.

The company has also built its own distributed training system for large language models, bypassing established frameworks like Megatron and DeepSpeed to create a customized solution tailored to their unique needs. By employing reversible layers (RevNets), they have further optimized model efficiency, allowing for better scaling of their AI systems.

What Sets Poolside Apart

In a competitive landscape, Poolside’s distinctiveness lies in its focus on developers. While companies like Mistral AI target corporate clients, Poolside is building tools designed to integrate directly into the workflows of individual developers and teams.

Their first product, set to launch next year, is positioned as a direct competitor to GitHub Copilot X. It promises a natural language, multi-turn dialogue system, enabling developers to issue instructions in their editor and receive actionable code suggestions in real-time.

“Natural language, multi-turn dialogue system where developers give instructions of what they want done while they’re in their editor. That’s our starting point and what we’re gonna be bringing out next year to users,” the founders shared.

Additionally, Poolside plans to expose its AI models via APIs, empowering other developers and companies to build on their technology.

The Funding Story

Poolside’s journey has been a financial juggernaut. After securing $126 million in seed funding, the company is now in advanced talks to raise nearly $500 million in new financing, bringing its total funding to $600 million. With Bain Capital Ventures expected to lead the round, Poolside is poised to hit a $3 billion valuation—an extraordinary feat for a company yet to release a product.

The scale of this investment highlights the unwavering investor appetite for AI startups, even as public markets grow cautious about the immediate commercial returns of such technologies.

The Road Ahead

Poolside’s ambitions extend far beyond coding. While their current focus is on developer tools, their long-term vision includes expanding AI capabilities into other fields, ultimately contributing to the broader pursuit of AGI.

Their meticulously built infrastructure, innovative data strategies, and strong investor backing place them in a league of their own. As the startup races to launch its first product, the tech world is watching closely, waiting to see if Poolside can deliver on its promise to redefine software development and, perhaps, the future of artificial intelligence itself.

With over 10,000 GPUs, strategic partnerships with giants like AWS, and an environment built on 130,000 real-world code bases, Poolside is in the race to AGI.

“Only a handful of companies will reach (artificial general intelligence) — and they are being forged at this very moment,” said Poolside CEO Jason Warner. “We believe software development will be the first broad capability where AI will reach and surpass human-level intelligence. Through our team, our applied research, and a powerful revenue engine, poolside will bring AI for software development so that anyone in the world can build.”