Perplexity AI: Rapid Growth and Potential $8 Billion Valuation Amid AI Search Revolution

AI search startup Perplexity now serves over 100M queries per week (NASDAQ:NVDA)

Artificial intelligence search startup Perplexity AI now serves over 100M queries every week, chief executive Aravind Srinivas said in a post on X on Friday. The CEO of the Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA)-backed startup added that the company was aiming for 100M+ queries every day next. Perplexity aims to compete with Google (GOOG)(GOOGL) in the search arena, utilizing generative AI to answer queries. The Jeff Bezos-backed company is reportedly looking to raise about $500M in its latest funding round, more than doubling its valuation to $8B. More on Nvidia Nvidia Is Cruising: Why It Should Dominate AI Phase II (Technical Analysis) Nvidia: Latest Blackwell Developments Support One-Stop AI Shop Scenario

Perplexity Says AI Search Engine Serves 100 Million Queries Per Week | PYMNTS.com

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said Friday (Oct. 25) that the artificial intelligence (AI) search company is serving over 100 million queries per week. "Perplexity now serves over 100M queries every week," Srinivas wrote in a post on X. "Next stop: 100M+ queries every day." This announcement comes five days after it was reported that Perplexity is looking to raise about $500 million in a new funding round that would value it at $8 billion. The reported potential funding round would be the company's fourth in a year and would more than double its valuation. It was valued at $520 million in January and $3 billion this summer. Perplexity's annualized revenue is about $50 million, up from $10 million in March. It was reported in September that Perplexity is planning a new advertising model for its AI-powered search engine and is in talks with brands in a bid to take on Google in the digital ad market. With this new model, brands would be allowed to bid for a "sponsored" question that features an AI-generated answer approved by the advertiser. Currently, Perplexity's AI chatbot gives users a comprehensive response to questions based on information from the web, as well as suggestions for follow-up queries. The company was sued Monday (Oct. 21) by two News Corp-owned publishers -- Wall Street Journal (WSJ) parent company Dow Jones and the New York Post. In their copyright infringement lawsuit, the publishers allege that Perplexity uses their copyrighted content to answer users' questions, in some cases reproducing entire articles, and takes traffic that would otherwise have gone to the publishers' sites. Two days later, on Wednesday (Oct. 23), Srinivas said he was surprised by the lawsuit and that Perplexity wants to form revenue-sharing partnerships with news publishers. Srinivas said that he is not interested in signing licensing agreements with publishers, instead suggesting that the company would share advertising revenue with publishers. He added that Perplexity could supply publishers with chatbots that would respond to users' queries on the publishers' websites, using their content to provide the answers. "I hope that more conversations will get us there," Srinivas said.

Report: AI search startup Perplexity in talks with investors over $500M raise - SiliconANGLE

Report: AI search startup Perplexity in talks with investors over $500M raise Perplexity AI Inc., creator of an artificial intelligence-powered search engine platform, is reportedly discussing yet another huge funding round with investors that could increase its valuation to more than $8 billion. In the last year, Perplexity has already closed on three big funding rounds, and its current valuation stands at $3 billion as of this summer, up from $1 billion in April and $520 million in January. The fact it's reportedly looking to raise yet more money underscores the incredible enthusiasm of Silicon Valley investors to get in on the hottest AI startups. According to the Wall Street Journal, the startup is looking to raise around $500 million in additional funding, though the amount could change, people familiar with the matter said. The talks come in the wake of OpenAI's most recent funding round, which saw the AI market leader raise $6.6 billion at a valuation of $157 billion. Perplexity, which was founded two years ago and is backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, SoftBank Group Corp. and Nvidia Corp., among others, has built an AI search engine and chatbot combo that aims to provide an alternative to Google Search. Like Google, Perplexity's AI engine searches the web for the most up to date information, but rather than produce a list of links, it will respond to user's queries in a manner that's more akin to ChatGPT. The startup's tools are free to use, but it makes money from selling premium subscriptions that enable more advanced features. Besides targeting consumers, it has also launched an enterprise-grade version of its search engine for businesses. That version can also search a company's internal files to answer business-related questions. In addition, Perplexity has said it plans to integrate ads with its platform as a way of generating additional revenue. The Journal said Perplexity's consumer-focused search engine typically handles around 15 million queries per day, citing one of the people familiar with the funding talks. The same source said its annualized revenue currently stands at about $50 million, up from just $10 million in March. Like a lot of AI startups, Perplexity has attracted some controversy lately, finding itself in the crosshairs of various web publishers that have accused it of using their content to generate its results without permission. For instance, Forbes has complained that Perplexity plagiarized one of its paywalled articles in a search result, while Wired has accused it of scraping content from websites, including its own, even if they set their robots.txt files to instruct search engine crawlers not to do this. More recently, the New York Times reportedly sent Perplexity a "cease and desist" letter, asking it to stop accessing its content. Perplexity has responded to this criticism by holding out an olive branch. In July, it announced a revenue-sharing program for publishers, saying those who participate will receive a flat fee every time their content is used in search results that generate ad revenue. To further sweeten the deal, Perplexity is also offering participating publishers a free, one-year subscription to its paid platform, as well as access to its application programming interface, giving them the option to embed its search engine into their own web pages. At the time, Perplexity Chief Executive Aravind Srinivas said the startup was trying to "align incentives" for all parties in a scalable and sustainable way, adding that he wants to avoid any antagonistic relationships with news publishers.

Report: AI search startup Perplexity in talks with investors over $500M funding - SiliconANGLE

Report: AI search startup Perplexity in talks with investors over $500M funding Perplexity AI Inc., creator of an artificial intelligence-powered search engine platform, is reportedly discussing yet another huge funding round with investors that could increase its valuation to more than $8 billion. In the last year, Perplexity has already closed on three big funding rounds, and its current valuation stands at $3 billion as of this summer, up from $1 billion in April and $520 million in January. The fact it's reportedly looking to raise yet more money underscores the incredible enthusiasm of Silicon Valley investors to get in on the hottest AI startups. According to the Wall Street Journal, the startup is looking to raise around $500 million in additional funding, though the amount could change, people familiar with the matter said. The talks come in the wake of OpenAI's most recent funding round, which saw the AI market leader raise $6.6 billion at a valuation of $157 billion. Perplexity, which was founded two years ago and is backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, SoftBank Group Corp. and Nvidia Corp., among others, has built an AI search engine and chatbot combo that aims to provide an alternative to Google Search. Like Google, Perplexity's AI engine searches the web for the most up to date information, but rather than produce a list of links, it will respond to user's queries in a manner that's more akin to ChatGPT. The startup's tools are free to use, but it makes money from selling premium subscriptions that enable more advanced features. Besides targeting consumers, it has also launched an enterprise-grade version of its search engine for businesses. That version can also search a company's internal files to answer business-related questions. In addition, Perplexity has said it plans to integrate ads with its platform as a way of generating additional revenue. The Journal said Perplexity's consumer-focused search engine typically handles around 15 million queries per day, citing one of the people familiar with the funding talks. The same source said its annualized revenue currently stands at about $50 million, up from just $10 million in March. Like a lot of AI startups, Perplexity has attracted some controversy lately, finding itself in the crosshairs of various web publishers that have accused it of using their content to generate its results without permission. For instance, Forbes has complained that Perplexity plagiarized one of its paywalled articles in a search result, while Wired has accused it of scraping content from websites, including its own, even if they set their robots.txt files to instruct search engine crawlers not to do this. More recently, the New York Times reportedly sent Perplexity a "cease and desist" letter, asking it to stop accessing its content. Perplexity has responded to this criticism by holding out an olive branch. In July, it announced a revenue-sharing program for publishers, saying those who participate will receive a flat fee every time their content is used in search results that generate ad revenue. To further sweeten the deal, Perplexity is also offering participating publishers a free, one-year subscription to its paid platform, as well as access to its application programming interface, giving them the option to embed its search engine into their own web pages. At the time, Perplexity Chief Executive Aravind Srinivas said the startup was trying to "align incentives" for all parties in a scalable and sustainable way, adding that he wants to avoid any antagonistic relationships with news publishers.

AI search start-up Perplexity targets $8bn valuation in fourth financing round this year

Perplexity, an artificial intelligence-powered search engine aiming to take on Google, is in funding discussions for the fourth time this year, looking to raise up to $1bn at more than double its previous valuation as an investor frenzy for AI start-ups shows little sign of abating. Weeks after OpenAI sealed one of the largest fundraisings in Silicon Valley history, Perplexity had been overwhelmed by unsolicited interest from new investors, according to multiple people familiar with the situation. It is now in talks to raise between $500mn and $1bn, which would value the company at $8bn, according to the people. "The intensity and interest has accelerated" in the past month, said one person familiar with the discussions. OpenAI's $6.6bn round, which valued the company at $150bn, has set a new ceiling for AI start-ups. In recent weeks, OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever and "godmother" of AI Fei-Fei Li have separately raised $1bn each for months-old start-ups. OpenAI's former chief technology officer Mira Murati, who left the company this month, is also in early conversations with investors about raising funds for a new venture, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The flurry of fundraising has added to concerns about a bubble forming in the sector, with start-ups that are yet to be profitable burning through billions of dollars to train cutting-edge AI models. One venture capital investor said Perplexity's mooted valuation was "heady" and had priced out his firm. The fundraising was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. People familiar with the discussions emphasised that no lead investor had been chosen and nothing had been signed, although it was expected that existing investors would participate in the round. Perplexity's current backers include AI chipmaker Nvidia and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as well as several prominent names from the AI industry, such as OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy and Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun. It has been just a few months since Perplexity closed a $250mn fundraising round that included SoftBank's Vision Fund 2, said people familiar with the deal. That tripled its valuation to $3bn in June. The company had previously raised funds in January and April of this year. The San Francisco-based group is seeking to redesign the search ads system pioneered by Google, where marketers bid to have a sponsored link placed against search queries and is in talks with major brands to pilot advertising on its platform. Run by former Google intern Aravind Srinivas, the start-up's success will depend on its ability to grow users and navigate complaints from publishers that it is plagiarising their content without permission. The company said 250mn queries were made on its search engine in July, compared with 500mn in the whole of last year. Perplexity currently makes money through subscriptions and says its annualised revenues -- a projection of full-year revenues based on extrapolating the most recent month's sales -- have grown from $5mn in January to $35mn in August. Perplexity declined to comment on the new fundraising.

Report: AI Search Company Perplexity Aims to Raise $500 Million | PYMNTS.com

Artificial intelligence (AI) search company Perplexity is reportedly looking to raise about $500 million in a new funding round that would value it at $8 billion. The company has mentioned these figures in talks with investors, though the terms could change and the funding might not come together, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Sunday (Oct. 20), citing unnamed sources. Perplexity did not immediately reply to PYMNTS' request for comment. The reported potential funding round would be the company's fourth in a year and would more than double its valuation, according to the report. It was valued at $520 million in January and $3 billion this summer. Perplexity's annualized revenue is about $50 million, up from $10 million in March, the report said, citing the unnamed sources. It was reported Oct. 2 that OpenAI nearly doubled its valuation, reaching $157 billion, while raising $6.6 billion in new funding. OpenAI was previously valued at $86 billion earlier this year after employees sold shares. In September, a 3-month-old AI startup raised $1 billion in a funding round. The funding round of Safe Superintelligence (SSI), co-founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, saw participation from NFDG, a venture capital firm run by Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman, alongside tech investment heavyweights Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, DST Global and SV Angel. Perplexity has been making waves in the search engine market with its approach in which its search tools provide users with instant answers to questions, sources and citations, PYMNTS reported in June. The company uses various large language models (LLMs), including those from OpenAI and Meta's open-source Llama, to summarize and generate information. It reported over 500 million queries served in 2023, achieved with minimal marketing expenditure. It was reported in August that Perplexity was preparing to monetize its platform through ads, a move that could reshape competition in the digital ad market. The company has also faced controversy, with some major media outlets accusing it of plagiarism, raising questions about content ownership and fair use in the AI era. Perplexity adjusted its citation practices and introduced a revenue-sharing model for publishers.

Jeff Bezos-Backed Perplexity Aims For $8B Valuation In New Funding Round: AI-Fueled Google Challenger Reportedly Seeks $500M For Growth - Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Perplexity, an artificial intelligence startup, is in discussions to raise its valuation to $8 billion or higher in its latest funding round, a significant increase from its previous valuation of $3 billion. What Happened: The San Francisco-based company, which has seen its valuation triple in the past year, is looking to raise approximately $500 million in its fourth funding round, reported The Wall Street Journal on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter. The funding would be a test of investor interest in high-growth AI startups. Perplexity, founded two years ago and backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, is a search-based chatbot that provides real-time information. The company's annualized revenue is currently around $50 million, up from $10 million in March. Despite its rapid growth, Perplexity has faced criticism from web publishers for using their content without permission. The New York Times has even sent a "cease and desist" notice to the startup. Perplexity did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comment. See Also: This Small-Cap Nuclear Stock Is Up Over 100% In A Month: Will It Keep Generating Momentum? Why It Matters: Perplexity has been making significant strides in the AI industry. In September, the company was reportedly in talks with top brands like Nike Inc. and Marriott International as it prepared to challenge Google's dominance in the digital ads industry. In August, its revenue and usage skyrocketed after it entered into advertising. Perplexity's CEO, Aravind Srinivas, has been vocal about challenging the duopoly of Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG subsidiary Google and Meta Platforms Inc META in the search and advertising industry. Perplexity is also in discussions with major brands like Nike Inc. and Marriott International to develop a "sponsored" question system, aiming to disrupt Google's auction-based ads model. Read Next: Nvidia Stock Is Up Over 233% In The Past Year And Tech Bulls Say It Could Go Even Higher From Here: '...You'll See The Stock Double Over The Next Several Years' Image Via Shutterstock This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Kaustubh Bagalkote Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Perplexity AI Hopes to Double Its Valuation to $8 Billion

The Nvidia-backed artificial intelligence company's estimated annualized revenue based on recent sales is currently about $50 million, the report added. In October, the startup said it had received a "cease and desist" notice from the New York Times demanding it to stop using the newspaper's content for generative AI purposes. Perplexity has previously faced accusations from media organizations such as Forbes and Wired for plagiarizing their content, but has since launched a revenue-sharing program to address some concerns put forward by publishers. Perplexity's search tools enable users to get instant answers to questions with sources and citations. It is powered by a variety of large language models (LLMs) that can sum up and generate information, from OpenAI to Meta's open-source model Llama.

Jeff Bezos Backed Perplexity AI Eyes $500M Raise - Is It Worth $8B?

If Perplexity can poach just a fraction of the $175 billion Google generated from searches last year, it would justify the high valuation. Four months after raising $250 million from investors including Nvidia and Jeff Bezos, the AI search startup Perplexity AI reportedly seeks an additional $500 million. According to media reports , the funding round values the company at between $8 billion and $9 billion, making it one of the hottest AI startups. But with the likes of Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI all competing for a slice of the AI search market, betting on Perplexity could be risky. From Zero to Eight Billion in Two Years Perplexity AI's journey to its current valuation has been meteoric. Founded in 2022, the company raised $11.5 million in seed funding that same year, establishing the precedent for its explosive growth. By the time it closed a $25.6 million Series A round in April 2023, Perplexity's valuation had swollen to an estimated $500 million. That figure jumped again in January this year when a $73.6 million Series B boosted the startup's valuation to $3 billion. The most recent round, which included participation from Nvidia and Bezos Expeditions, landed Perplexity on the tech sector's radar and cemented its position among the world's most valuable AI developers. The current talks to raise additional capital at an $8 billion valuation reflect the significant investor appetite for AI technologies that promise to revolutionize how information is searched and processed. Behind the lofty valuation target lies an appeal that would get any investor's heart racing: the prospect of usurping Google as the world's dominant search engine AI Firms Target Lucrative Search Market Google's dominance of the market for online search services has stood at around 90% since the mid-2000s. In 2023, Google generated $175 billion in advertising revenue from online searches, accounting for nearly 60% of its total earnings that year. But if there was ever a technology that could disrupt the status quo, it's generative AI. And for a company like Perplexity AI, stealing even a small slice of Google's market share would justify a multi-billion dollar valuation. Competition in AI Search After OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, Google's management reportedly declared a "code red," anticipating that unless they acted quickly, the new chatbot could threaten its primary source of revenue. Today, the competition is even more intense. With OpenAI's SearchGPT taking direct aim at Google's dominance, the Big Tech giant has pushed out features like AI Overviews to protect its home turf. To understand the threat to Google, recall that in 1990, the most valuable companies in the world were Big Oil corporations and large auto manufacturers. Within two decades, the rise of personal computers and the internet caused a complete realignment of the economic hierarchy. Just as the industrial giants of yesteryear were eclipsed by a new generation of Silicon Valley upstarts, disruptive AI players like Perplexity could do the same to Google and its peers in the years ahead.

What is Perplexity AI and why is it stirring controversy?

The Jeff Bezos- supported AI start-up is hoping to use LLMs to challenge Google in the search engine market but it's ruffling feathers. Artificial intelligence (AI) start-ups are making waves, with Perplexity AI becoming the latest to hit the headlines. Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine and chatbot that assembles information from webpages that it deems trustworthy and then provides a summary with its own tool. It is one of the start-ups that is trying to open up the Google-dominated search engine market. The company says its mission is to "democratise access to knowledge" by making it easier for anyone to learn and explore new topics. The company currently receives about 15 million queries a day, according to the Wall Street Journal. Euronews Next looks at how to use it and why it's the sudden object of interest and controversy. Perplexity uses multiple large language models (LLMs), such as OpenAI and Meta's Llama, to generate summaries from your search. But what makes it different from the likes of Google? Traditional search engines use pre-indexed data. But Perplexity does real-time searches, which the company said makes it effective for topics that evolve quickly, such as news. Rather than providing a list of links like other search engines, Perplexity says it gives you answers in "clear, everyday language". It also shows links to the sources that have been used in the answers so that you know where the information is coming from. Perplexity was founded in 2022 by Andy Konwinski, Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, and Johnny Ho, who met while working at Google AI. The company is based in the San Francisco Bay Area in the US and is funded by several venture capital firms. It is also backed by Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos. The company is in fundraising talks and hopes to raise around $500 million (€463 million) at an $8 billion (€7.4 billion) valuation, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal this week. This would double the company's valuation.

Perplexity is reportedly looking to fundraise at an $8B valuation

AI search engine Perplexity is in fundraising talks and hopes to raise around $500 million at an $8 billion valuation, according to the Wall Street Journal. If a deal happens with those terms, it would more than double Perplexity's valuation from its $3 billion valuation when it raised from SoftBank over the summer. The WSJ reports that the company currently receives about 15 million queries a day and brings in around $50 million in annualized revenue. Perplexity uses AI to help people search the web in a chatbot-style interface. Some news publishers have accused the company of unauthorized web scraping and plagiarism, and The New York Times has even sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter, but CEO Aravind Srinivas said he wants to work with publishers and has "no interest in being anyone's antagonist here." These fundraising talks come after OpenAI announced raising a $6.6 billion round at a $157 billion valuation. While products like OpenAI's ChatGPT have blurred the line between chatbot and search engine, the company is moving more directly into search with SearchGPT. Perplexity did not immediately respond to a TechCrunch request for comment.

AI Search Startup Perplexity in Talks For $9 Billion Valuation

Perplexity AI Inc., an artificial intelligence company building a search product that aims to compete with Google, is in early talks to raise funding from investors at a valuation of about $9 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company is seeking to raise more than $500 million in the funding round, according to the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private information.

Perplexity Hopes to More Than Double Valuation to $8 Billion

Perplexity, an AI search startup, is discussing fundraising that would more than double its valuation to $8 billion, the latest indication that investor enthusiasm for AI is far from waning. Perplexity has been on a hot streak this year: It has already raised two other funding rounds in 2024 -- catapulting its valuation to $250 million and then to $3 billion. At the same time, Perplexity has

Perplexity AI Plans to Raise USD 500 Million in Funding at USD 9 Billion Valuation: Report

Accusations of content scraping and plagiarism surface but are denied by the company. Artificial intelligence (AI) search company Perplexity AI has reportedly started fundraising talks, aiming to more than double its valuation to about USD 9 billion or more. The company now plans to raise around USD 500 million, though the amount is subject to change, CNBC reported, citing people familiar with the matter. This follows a significant increase from its USD 3 billion valuation in June. Also Read: Telefonica's Wayra Invests in AI Startup Perplexity, Signs Commercial Agreement Reportedly, Perplexity started the year with a roughly USD 500 million valuation. Founded amid the growing generative AI sector, Perplexity has completed three funding rounds this year, attracting significant investor interest. However, the company faces controversy over accusations of content scraping and plagiarism from media outlets such as The New York Times. Despite these allegations, which Perplexity denies, the company tries to expand its presence in the generative AI market, competing with companies like OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. Also Read: SAP Expands Its Partnership with Mistral AI to Broaden Customer Choice Recently, as reported by TelecomTalk, Wayra, the corporate venture capital arm of Spain-based telecommunications company Telefonica, announced it has invested an undisclosed sum in Perplexity. Wayra believes that Perplexity has a differentiated proposition that will revolutionize the way users find information on the internet by allowing them to ask questions directly and receive clear and concise answers from a curated set of relevant sources. Telefonica also announced that it has signed a global commercial agreement with Perplexity to offer preferential benefits to its customers in Brazil, the UK, and Spain, while exploring opportunities to expand this partnership to other countries.

Perplexity AI Seeks $8 Billion Valuation in New Round, WSJ Says

Artificial intelligence search company Perplexity AI has started fundraising talks in which it aims to more than double its valuation to $8 billion or more, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. Perplexity has told investors it hopes to raise about $500 million in the new funding round, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. The terms could change and the funding might not come together, the paper said.

Perplexity AI seeks $8 billion valuation in new funding round

The company, which was valued at $3 billion in June, is now looking to raise roughly $500 million, though that could change, according to a person familiar with the matter who declined to be named because the talks are confidential. The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the new funding round. Perplexity started the year with a roughly $500 million valuation. Since then, the company has continued to attract investor interest alongside the bigger boom in generative AI, raising three funding rounds this year. Perplexity is among the flood of AI startups trying to compete for a slice of the buzzy generative market, which is led by OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. Despite the AI hype, Perplexity has been mired in controversy, facing a slew of plagiarism accusations from media outlets like the New York Times, which claim the company scrapes their content to generate its answers. Perplexity has denied the allegations.

Perplexity AI in funding talks to more than double valuation to $8 billion, WSJ reports

Oct 20 (Reuters) - Jeff Bezos-backed Perplexity AI has begun fundraising talks in which it is looking to more than double its valuation to $8 billion or more, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. Perplexity has told investors it is looking to raise around $500 million in the new funding round, the Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter. Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab