Perplexity AI in Talks to Raise Up to $1 Billion, Potentially Doubling Valuation to $18 Billion

Perplexity is reportedly in talks to raise up to $1B at an $18B valuation | TechCrunch

AI-powered search startup Perplexity is said to be in early talks to raise up to $1 billion in a new funding round valuing the startup at $18 billion. Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported on Thursday that Perplexity's annual recurring revenue has now reached $100 million. Perplexity's valuation has soared in recent years. This new round would double Perplexity's current valuation -- $9 billion -- as of December. In April 2024, Perplexity was valued at $1 billion. Rumors of a new round come as competition in the AI-powered search space heats up. On Thursday, Anthropic added web search to its consumer AI chatbot, Claude. Earlier in March, Google launched an early version of a chat-based AI search engine, called AI Mode, for a group of limited group of testers. Perhaps because its core market is becoming increasingly crowded, Perplexity is trying to expand into new areas. The startup recently teased the launch of an "agentic" browser called Comet, and it has ramped up its enterprise offerings, recently launching an AI search engine to help businesses retrieve information from internal documents. We've reached out to Perplexity for comment on the fundraising rumors and will update this post if we hear back.

Perplexity AI in talks to raise funds at $18 billion valuation, source says

March 20 (Reuters) - Perplexity AI is in talks to raise funds at an $18 billion valuation, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday, as the Nvidia-backed (NVDA.O), opens new tab startup looks to grow and capture soaring demand for its search tools. The jump in valuation doubles the previous $9 billion figure, reported by Reuters in November. Perplexity is an AI startup that provides information by searching the internet, just like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, and is backed by Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab founder Jeff Bezos and Japan's SoftBank Group (9984.T), opens new tab. The company has discussed raising between $500 million and $1 billion in the round, the report added. The AI startup has been upgrading features on its platform to better compete with Google's Gemini and Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O), opens new tab OpenAI's ChatGPT. OpenAI closed a $6.6 billion funding round in October, which could value the company at $157 billion and cement its position as one of the most valuable private companies in the world. Reporting by Akash Sriram, Jaspreet Singh and Kritika Lamba in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence

Perplexity AI in talks to double valuation to $18 billion, raise up to $1 billion in new funding

Perplexity AI is in early talks to raise between $500 million and $1 billion in funding at an $18 billion post-money valuation, a source familiar with the situation told CNBC. The new funding would double the artificial intelligence startup's most recent valuation. Perplexity has just under $100 million in annual recurring revenue, or ARR, according to the source, who asked to remain anonymous due to the confidential nature of the talks. The AI search engine company competes against the likes of Google and Microsoft-backed OpenAI. Its valuation in December was $9 billion, triple its $3 billion valuation in June 2024. Perplexity has been in the middle of the generative AI boom that began in late 2022 with the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT, but it faces increasing competition in the AI search market. Earlier on Thursday, Anthropic launched its web search product, allowing its chatbot Claude to display real-time search results to a subset of users. And last fall, OpenAI launched a search feature within ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, that positioned it to better compete with Perplexity, as well as leading search engines like Google and Microsoft's Bing. Google has released AI Overviews within its search product as well, though it sparked controversy over high-profile errors soon after its release. Bloomberg was first to report on Perplexity's funding talks. CNBC reported last month that Perplexity was close to raising a $50 million venture fund focused on early-stage AI startups. The company will be an anchor investor in the fund, but most of the capital is coming from outside limited partners, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke with CNBC at the time. Perplexity sees a potential investing advantage when it comes to startups because roughly 80,000 developers are plugged into its network, the person told CNBC at the time. That gives the startup visibility into who is using its application programming interface, or API, and who is most active in their consumption. Perplexity's founders and investors are putting money into the fund, and some of the company's commitment is in the form of stock, the source said. The startup also made a bid in January to merge with TikTok as the social media platform's future in the U.S. remains in limbo. Despite the AI boom, Perplexity has been embroiled in controversy due to accusations of plagiarizing content from media outlets. Perplexity debuted a revenue-sharing model for publishers in July. Any time a user asks a question and Perplexity generates ad revenue from citing an article in its answer, Perplexity will share a percentage of that revenue with the publisher, the company said at the time.

Money-hungry AI search startup Perplexity in talks to raise up to $1B in fresh funding - SiliconANGLE

The artificial intelligence search application company Perpexity AI Inc. is gearing up for yet another mammoth funding round, according to the latest chat from Bloomberg and CNBC. Anonymous sources told Bloomberg that the early-stage discussions with investors could see the company raise between $500 million and $1 billion, and ultimately boost its value to a cool $18 billion. Perplexity was last valued at $9 billion after closing on a $500 million raise last December. That was triple its prior $3 billion valuation. The company competes with the likes of Google LLC and Microsoft Corp. in the web search industry, as well as chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT. It has been growing fast, riding on the back of a broader generative AI boom that kicked off in earnest back in late 2022, when ChatGPT first emerged to take the world by storm. Perplexity gained a significant first-mover advantage in the AI search space as it was one of the first alternatives to ChatGPT. According to CNBC's sources, it has grown its annual recurring revenue to just under $100 million. However, in recent months it has faced increased competition from both old and new rivals. Just this week, the large language model developer Anthropic PBC launched its first dedicated web search product, enabling its chatbot Claude to search the web and display real-time results. Last year, OpenAI added a similar web search feature to ChatGPT, aiming to take on Perplexity as well as Google. Of course, the world's biggest search company hasn't stood still, and last year it debuted an AI Overviews feature within Google Search, which provides more concise responses to user's search queries instead of just displaying a list of web links. Perplexity has responded to this increased competition in a number of ways. Last month, CNBC said the company had put together a $50 million venture fund that will focus on early-stage AI startups. While Perplexity will invest in the fund, most of the capital will come from third-party venture capitalists, the report said. The company believes it's in a good position to identify some promising startups, though, thanks to the recent launch of its Sonar application programming interface, which allows developers to embed its AI search functionality into their own applications. Through Sonar API, the company has visibility into which applications are using its search tools and generating traffic, so that could help it to spot some up and coming stars. In January, the company raised eyebrows with a radical proposal to merge with Bytedance Ltd.'s TikTok, which has come under pressure in the U.S. The proposed merger would allow TikTok to continue operating in the country once a federal ban, which was temporarily halted by President Donald Trump through an executive order, comes into effect. Whether or not that ambitious plans comes to fruition remains to be seen, but in all likelihood, it probably won't happen. Perplexity is also looking to step up its rivalry with Google. Last month, the company teased its upcoming AI-powered Comet browser, which is said to be designed for "agentic search" and would go up against traditional browsers like Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Opera. Few details were revealed, but the company insisted that it was "reinventing the browser" with Comet, and has promised to reveal more in due course. Meanwhile, the company continues to face controversy, with persistent accusations that its AI search results are simply plagiarizing content from media outlets. In response to this, Perplexity introduced a new revenue-sharing model for publishers, which launched in June. Any time it generates ad revenue from an answer that cites an article, the publisher of that story will receive a percentage, it said. The company said earlier this month it now has more than 15 million active users, and it has been attempting to monetize them in other ways, too. For instance, it offers a premium subscription that provides access to more advanced search capabilities, so users can search their own files on their computer or smartphone. It also provides more advanced features for finance-related queries relating to stock prices and earnings reports.

Perplexity to Raise up to $1 Billion to Double its Valuation to $18 Billion: Reports

The company closed a $500 million round at $9 billion valuation in December last year. Perplexity AI, the AI-enabled search engine, is in talks to raise funds between $500 million and $1 billion, valuing the company at $18 billion, Reuters reported on Friday. This doubles Perplexity's valuation, which stood at $9 billion in the previous funding round last December, after raising $500 million. Perplexity has been backed by NVIDIA, SoftBank Group, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. This development signals a growing demand for AI-powered search engine tools and applications. While Perplexity faces competition from Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT Search, even Anthropic has entered the game, announcing a web search feature in its Claude chatbot. Besides primarily functioning as an AI-powered search tool, Perplexity also provides reasoning and deep research capabilities, among numerous other features. The company also recently announced that it is developing an agentic web browser called Comet. Last month, Perplexity also announced Sonar, its in-house AI model, which is now available to all Pro users. Subscribers can set it as their default model in settings, and it is said to perform on par with OpenAI's GPT-4o. Furthermore, Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of T-Mobile, has partnered with Perplexity AI to create a next-generation AI phone. Running on a custom Magenta AI operating system, it will feature Perplexity Assistant. CEO Aravind Srinivas, in a recent podcast, said that as a company grows bigger, maintaining the same speed and agility becomes challenging. "It's beginning to happen already a little bit. We're not as fast as we used to be." "We do have staging, deployment testing, A/B testing -- all that stuff's happening, and that's naturally slowing us down in getting things out to production widely," he added. Perplexity AI reportedly boasts 15 million active users on its website and the app. However, a recent research study highlighted the inaccuracies in AI search engines. The Tow Center for Digital Journalism - Columbia University, performed an evaluation of search tools from ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok, DeepSeek Search, and Google's Gemini. Ten articles from each of the 20 publishers were selected randomly, and direct excerpts were picked from those articles as input for the AI tool. These tools were then asked to identify the article's headline, original publisher, publication date, and URL. The study found that collectively, these search engines provided incorrect answers to more than 60% of queries. Notably, Perplexity answered 37% of queries incorrectly, while Grok 3 answered 94% of queries incorrectly.

Perplexity wants a cool billion -- because $9B was so last quarter

Perplexity AI is in discussions to secure between $500 million and $1 billion in funding, which would value the artificial intelligence startup at $18 billion post-money, according to a source familiar with the situation who spoke to CNBC. This new funding would effectively double the startup's most recent valuation of $9 billion from December, after it achieved a threefold increase from its $3 billion valuation in June 2024. Perplexity AI currently reports nearly $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), as noted by the anonymous source. Operating in the competitive AI search market, Perplexity AI faces challenges from major players like Google and Microsoft-backed OpenAI. The generative AI boom, initiated with the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in late 2022, has intensified competition for Perplexity. Recently, Anthropic introduced its web search product, enabling its chatbot Claude to provide real-time search results to selected users. Furthermore, OpenAI has integrated a search feature into ChatGPT and Google has launched AI Overviews within its search product, though this feature faced backlash due to significant errors following its release. Bloomberg first reported on Perplexity's current funding endeavors. Additionally, CNBC highlighted last month that Perplexity was nearing the completion of a $50 million venture fund aimed at early-stage AI startups. The company plans to be an anchor investor in this fund, with most of the investment coming from outside limited partners. Perplexity sees a strategic advantage in its investment initiatives, leveraging a network of approximately 80,000 developers. This extensive network allows the startup to track usage patterns of its application programming interface (API) and identify the most active users, according to a source who spoke to CNBC. The company's founders and investors will also contribute to the fund, with a portion of the commitment being in stock. Perplexity made a bid in January to merge with TikTok, coinciding with ongoing uncertainties regarding the social media platform's future in the U.S. Despite the thriving AI landscape, Perplexity has come under scrutiny due to allegations of plagiarizing content from media outlets. In response to these concerns, Perplexity initiated a revenue-sharing model for publishers in July, allowing them to receive a percentage of the ad revenue generated when users ask questions that reference their articles.

Perplexity AI in talks to raise funds at $18 billion valuation, source says

Perplexity is an AI startup that provides information by searching the internet, just like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, and is backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and Japan's SoftBank Group. The AI startup has been upgrading features on its platform to better compete with Google's Gemini and Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT.Perplexity AI is in talks to raise funds at an $18 billion valuation, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday, as the Nvidia-backed startup looks to grow and capture soaring demand for its search tools. The jump in valuation doubles the previous $9 billion figure, reported by Reuters in November. Perplexity is an AI startup that provides information by searching the internet, just like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, and is backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and Japan's SoftBank Group. The company has discussed raising between $500 million and $1 billion in the round, the source added. The growing adoption of chatbots and rise of AI agents, which can take actions for users, have increased investor enthusiasm in such startups. The AI startup has been upgrading features on its platform to better compete with Google's Gemini and Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT. Last month, the company teased a new web browser, Comet, which can use AI to not only retrieve information but also understand complex queries, execute tasks and make decisions. Its Deep Research feature can undertake extensive research by conducting dozens of searches and reading hundreds of sources to deliver a comprehensive report. Bloomberg News was first to report the increased valuation. Perplexity is among the leading firms attempting to challenge incumbents in the search engine market such as Alphabet's Google. Perplexity has faced accusations from media organizations, such as News Corp-owned outlets, Forbes and Wired, that the startup engages in plagiarism and copying of its content. The company has a publisher partnership program to work with news firms. OpenAI closed a $6.6 billion funding round in October, which could value the company at $157 billion and cement its position as one of the most valuable private companies in the world.

Jeff Bezos And Nvidia-Backed Perplexity AI Eyes $18 Billion Valuation In New Funding Round -- Doubling In Just 4 Months - Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN)

Perplexity, backed by Amazon.com Inc. AMZN founder Jeff Bezos and Nvidia Corp. NVDA is reportedly in talks to raise up to $1 billion in a new funding round that would value the company at $18 billion -- double its valuation just four months ago. What Happened: Perplexity is in discussions to raise between $500 million and $1 billion, reported Reuters, citing a person familiar with the matter This comes after the company was previously valued at $9 billion in November 2024. The massive jump reflects surging investor demand in AI search and agent-based technologies that can perform complex tasks on behalf of users. Subscribe to the Benzinga Tech Trends newsletter to get all the latest tech developments delivered to your inbox. Why It's Important: Perplexity's rising valuation puts it closer to elite AI firms like OpenAI, which raised $6.6 billion in 2023 at a $157 billion valuation. However, Perplexity's rapid rise has drawn scrutiny. Media companies including Forbes, Wired, and News Corp have accused the startup of scraping and republishing content without attribution. In response, the company has launched a publisher partnership program to work directly with news organizations. Earlier this week, SoftBank Corp. SFTBF SFTBY signed an agreement to become an authorized reseller of Perplexity Enterprise Pro, deploying a 7,000-member sales team to boost adoption in Japan. Meanwhile, Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas has stated that the company could enhance Apple Inc.'s AAPL AI capabilities, amid criticism of Cupertino for its delayed AI initiatives. Photo courtesy: Shutterstock Check out more of Benzinga's Consumer Tech coverage by following this link. Read Next: Mark Cuban Was Once Tending A Bar In Dallas But Quickly Realized He Wasn't Great At Working For People Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. AAPLApple Inc$213.72-0.18%Stock Score Locked: Want to See it? Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Reveal Full ScoreEdge RankingsMomentum75.50Growth47.14Quality83.02Value8.01Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewAMZNAmazon.com Inc$194.35-0.31%NVDANVIDIA Corp$117.51-0.86%SFTBFSoftBank Group Corp$62.2719.6%SFTBYSoftBank Group Corp$26.23-%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Report: Perplexity in Talks to Raise Up to $1 Billion | PYMNTS.com

Perplexity AI is reportedly in early talks to raise $500 million to $1 billion in a funding round that would value it at $18 billion. Reached by PYMNTS, Perplexity declined to comment on the report. The company was founded in 2022 and tripled its valuation twice in 2024, from $1 billion to $3 billion and then from $3 billion to $9 billion, per the Bloomberg report. In early March, Perplexity began open sourcing a version of DeepSeek's reasoning R1 model that is "unbiased, accurate" and has "factual information," overcoming the original version's refusal to respond to sensitive topics censored by the Chinese Communist Party. The startup retrained DeepSeek's R1 on a dataset of 300 topics known to be censored in China but with factual answers. T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom said in early March that it is using technology from Perplexity to develop an "AI Phone" that would serve as a "virtual butler," enabling users to simply talk to the phone to get it to do tasks, rather than switching between apps. The Perplexity assistant will serve as the primary AI interface on the AI Phone, just like the way Siri runs systemwide in iPhones and Gemini is natively embedded in Google Pixel smartphones. In February, Perplexity said in a post on X that it plans to launch its own web browser, dubbed "Comet," and invited people to sign up on a waitlist. A Perplexity spokesperson told TechCrunch at the time: "Just like Perplexity reinvented search, we're also reinventing the browser. Stay tuned for updates."

Perplexity AI in talks to raise funds at $18 billion valuation, Bloomberg News reports

March 20 (Reuters) - Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity is in talks to raise funds at an $18 billion valuation, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, representing a substantial increase from the $9 billion valuation reported by Reuters in November. The company has discussed raising between $500 million and $1 billion in the round, the report added. The AI startup has been upgrading features on its platform to better compete with Google's Gemini and Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT. OpenAI closed a $6.6 billion funding round in October, which could value the company at $157 billion and cement its position as one of the most valuable private companies in the world. Perplexity did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. (Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)