Perplexity, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence search engine, is nearing completion of a $500mn funding round that would value the start-up at $14bn, a significant increase from its $9bn valuation six months ago, according to Finanical Times.
The funding round is being led by venture capital firm Accel, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. This would be Perplexity’s fifth funding round in less than 18 months, underscoring the intense interest investors have in AI start-ups.
Perplexity’s AI search chatbot aims to rival offerings from Google and OpenAI. The company’s chief executive, Aravind Srinivas, recently highlighted the need for additional capital to fund future products and expand its user base, which currently stands at around 30mn users.
The company has been backed by several high-profile investors, including Nvidia, New Enterprise Associates, IVP, and SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, as well as Big Tech heavyweights such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy, Google AI executive Jeff Dean, and Meta’s Yann LeCun.
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Perplexity has been expanding its offerings, recently launching a voice mode that allows users to interact with the AI search through voice commands on Apple devices. The company also plans to launch an “agentic browser” called Comet, which autonomously searches online in response to user commands.
The latest fundraising is expected to support the development of this browser, potentially a Google Chrome replacement. Perplexity generates most of its revenue through premium subscriptions, with annualized revenues growing from $5mn in January to $35mn in August last year.
Srinivas has noted that the company’s computing power and infrastructure costs are significant, but it has substantial cash reserves. Perplexity currently employs around 200 staff and is looking to scale its operations further.
