Post #180

Poolside AI just closed a $500M Series B at $3B valuation — here's how two ex-GitHub executives built a coding assistant that rivals Copilot. What it is: AI coding platform with domain-specific models trained on 500K+ open-source repos using their proprietary RLCEF method. How it happened: • Warner (ex-GitHub CTO) met Kant in 2017 during failed acquisition talks • Spent 6 years plotting AI-driven developer tools while Warner was at Redpoint VC • Founded in May 2023 with $126M seed at $526M valuation • Hired ex-GitHub CRO Paul St. John for enterprise go-to-market • Secured AWS partnership for Bedrock deployment • Raised $500M Series B led by Bain Capital in 18 months Key insight: Domain expertise + enterprise relationships + technical differentiation = massive valuation jumps. Source: Contrary Research Brewed by Startup Beaker.