The short answer
No. Poolside is an American company. Its parent, Poolside, Inc., is a Delaware corporation (Poolside terms), and its UK company names Poolside Inc, “incorporated in the United States”, as its ultimate parent (Companies House). Its French company is a subsidiary with 3–5 employees (French registry).
Co-CEO Eiso Kant put it plainly on April 30, 2026: “We are an American company with a global team and global aspirations” (X). Poolside’s job posts say the same: “We were founded in the US and have our home there, but our team is distributed across Europe and North America” (Poolside).
Poolside’s companies, country by country
Company | Country | What it is | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
Poolside, Inc. | United States (Delaware) | The parent company, which signs customer contracts; address 548 Market St., San Francisco | |
Poolside Federal LLC | United States | Its arm for US government work | |
Poolside AI Ltd | United Kingdom | A 100%-owned subsidiary of Poolside Inc; 37 staff on average in its 2025 accounts | |
Poolside AI SAS | France | A subsidiary formed on July 10, 2023, at 9 rue des Colonnes, Paris; 3–5 employees | |
Poolside AI AG | Switzerland | A subsidiary formed in August 2024, in Zurich | |
Poolside Infrastructure Company | United States | A separate company, set up in 2026, building the Project Horizon data center in Texas |
The French company does real business: in 2024 it signed for computing power from IREN, a data-center operator (SEC). But it is one of three European subsidiaries of a US parent.
Why so many sites call Poolside French
The label comes from August 2023. Sifted reported that Poolside had “opened a French subsidiary and decided to move its HQ to Paris, sources say”, as it raised $100 million in a round led by French billionaire Xavier Niel and US fund Felicis, with Bpifrance, the French state investment bank, taking part (Sifted). The same report called it a “US AI startup”.
Date | What was said | Source |
|---|---|---|
Aug 2023 | “la startup deviendrait française” (the startup would become French) | |
Jan 2024 | “Fondée aux États-Unis… puis délocalisée en France” (founded in the US, then moved to France) | |
Sep 2024 | “Paris-based Poolside” | |
Sep 2024 | “French startup Poolside… moved its HQ from the US to Paris” | |
Oct 2024 | “licorne tricolore” (French unicorn) | |
Feb 2025 | One of “ces cinq start-up françaises” (five French startups) at the forefront of AI | |
Nov 2026 | Dealroom still gives Paris as its headquarters | |
Nov 2026 | Listed as a “French AI solution” |
French Wikipedia calls Poolside an American startup, but its fact box shows the Paris subsidiary’s address (Wikipedia). English Wikipedia describes it as an American company in San Francisco (Wikipedia).
What Poolside says
The question resurfaced in April 2026, when Chris O’Brien, a Paris-based journalist who publishes The French Tech Journal, noted on X that LinkedIn showed only 7 Poolside employees in France (X). Kant responded the next day. The plan to build from France, he wrote, didn’t survive contact with hiring: “Three years ago we thought France would be a great place to build from but in the early days found our hiring happened all across Europe instead. Today we have less than a handful of folks in France but large teams in Europe in London, Amsterdam, Zurich etc.” (X)
He added that the founders turned down French research grants: “When we got to France (almost 3 years ago) we were offered significant double digit million research grants. My cofounder @jasoncwarner and I did not feel comfortable accepting the grants when we realized that France was going to be only a small part of our story.” Correcting the label is “something I’ve been trying to correct for a long time” (X). On the Latent Space podcast in July he repeated it: “We from day zero were an American company” (Latent Space).
Where Poolside’s people work
Poolside is “a fully remote company” (Poolside). Kant puts its team in Europe and the US at “roughly equal in size”, with Asia growing; it uses a London office daily and holds monthly team weeks, which have been in Paris (X). Dealroom’s count of its workforce: 36% in the US, 22% in the UK, 7% in France, 7% in the Netherlands and 6% in Switzerland (Dealroom).
Its biggest commitments are American: Poolside Federal, its government arm (Poolside), and Project Horizon, a data-center campus planned in West Texas (PIC). The co-CEOs themselves live in Canada and Portugal (Companies House).
Who funded Poolside
Its seed round was led by US-based Redpoint Ventures (Redpoint), and its $500 million Series B by Bain Capital Ventures, with Nvidia, eBay and Citi (TechCrunch). French money came early: Xavier Niel co-led the 2023 extension and Bpifrance took part (Sifted). Kant: “When we raised capital early on, the vast majority of it came from US investors but European (including French ones) have been a part of our rounds” (X).
So what is Poolside?
An American AI company with a large European team. It is incorporated in Delaware, signs its contracts in the US and calls the US home; about half its people work in Europe, mostly outside France, and it keeps a small French subsidiary from its 2023 plans. Calling it a French or European company, as many directories still do, is out of date.
More on Poolside: company profile, co-CEOs Jason Warner and Eiso Kant and email format.
