Perplexity AI, a startup developing an artificial intelligence-based Internet search system capable of fully competing with Google, was able to raise investments worth about $63 million as part of a new round of financing.
After the mentioned funding round, the value of the company exceeded the significant mark of $1 billion. It is worth noting that this indicator is twice as high as the figure that was reported just three months ago.
The new round of financing was led by investor Daniel Gross. Billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller, Y Combinator Chief Executive Officer Garry Tan, and Figma Inc. CEO Dylan Field also participated in this process. Moreover, the founder Amazon.com Inc. Jeff Bezos, and Nvidia Corp. joined the funding round. The interest of such large business players in a startup is evidence of its significant prospects and at the same time a kind of reflection of great potential in terms of technological capabilities.
Perplexity AI was founded less than two years ago. The company offers users a chatbot based on artificial intelligence. This machine intelligence system summarizes the results of search operations performed at the consumer’s request, provides links to information sources used to formulate the answer, and allows one to clarify questions to increase the accuracy and correctness of the final data.
Currently, it can be stated that the Perplexity AI digital product has been able to become noticeable against the background of other similar functional solutions. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that he uses the startup’s chatbot almost daily.
Since the beginning of the current year, Perplexity AI has processed a number of requests that exceed the total for the entire year 2023. In this case, it means data related to the company’s activities in the United States. In the first three and a half months of 2024, the startup’s chatbot processed almost 75 million requests.
Perplexity AI offers users free and paid versions of its service. The startup reports that its annual revenue is $20 million. The company also announced a new enterprise version of the chatbot, featuring additional functions. The cost of this modification of the startup’s digital product will be provided for a fee of $40 per month. The company announced that the new enterprise version of the chatbot will function as part of stricter security and data protection measures.
Perplexity AI also currently has plans to expand its user base. As part of the corresponding efforts, the startup has inked distribution partnerships with two major carriers, including Japan’s SoftBank Corp. and German Deutsche Telekom AG.
As we have reported earlier, Rippling Announces New Fundraising.
