Perplexity, an artificial intelligence startup, disclosed significant developments on January 4, including the successful completion of its Series B funding round, raising $73.6 million. The funding was led by IVP, known for investments in crypto and fintech, alongside existing Series A investors NEA, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, and Databricks, with additional contributions from Nvidia and Jeff Bezos via the Bezos Expeditions Fund.
TechCrunch reported the Series B funding elevated Perplexity's valuation to $520 million, bringing the total funds raised by the company to $100 million.
Perplexity also revealed noteworthy achievements, stating, "We've grown to 10 million monthly active users and have served over half a billion queries in 2023. More than a million people have installed our mobile apps, both on iOS and Android."
Despite being a relatively new player in the search engine and generative AI sectors, Perplexity's rapid growth and the experience of its leadership team, including CEO Aravind Srinivas and CTO Denis Yarats, have drawn attention. Srinivas, with a background at DeepMind, Google, and OpenAI, and Yarats, with experience at Facebook and Microsoft, contribute to the company's notable pedigree.
Perplexity's entry into the search and generative AI markets coincides with Big Tech's focus on chatbot technology. Industry leaders such as Google and Microsoft have shifted towards AI-centric interfaces for their flagship search products. Analysts predict the generative AI sector alone could reach $667 billion by 2030.
Perplexity sets itself apart by offering users the choice to summarize search results and generate outputs using its in-house AI models or opt for popular alternatives like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Google's Gemini. Despite these distinctions, parallels can be drawn, as both Perplexity and Microsoft offer similar AI assistants—Perplexity's Copilot and Microsoft's Copilot, respectively.
