Perplexity AI, the chatbot startup with big brains and even bigger ambitions, is reportedly in talks to raise between $500 million and $1 billion at a mouthwatering $18 billion valuation. That’s double its $9 billion tag just a few months ago, concluding a leap so fast it makes startup veterans spit out their kombucha.
What Perplexity Is All About
After its inception in 2022, Perplexity has gone from a dark horse to a serious contender in the generative AI race. The chatbot started as a niche tool and has since snowballed into a full-on AI search platform that now handles 15 million queries a day, boasting $100 million in annual recurring revenue, and has drawn investment from the likes of Nvidia (NVDA), SoftBank (SFTBY), and Jeff Bezos. Not bad for a company that’s not even three years old.
While OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini (GOOGL)) and Elon Musk’s xAI’s chatbot – Grok, have all jockeyed for chatbot supremacy, Perplexity took a different route, going all in on real-time, citation-backed answers instead of hallucinated hype. Its product is part search engine, part research assistant, part “Wait, how did Google not think of this?”
Perplexity redefines how people dig up information with its browser Comet and new Deep Research features. Unlike other chatbots, it does not toss links at you but provides its users with concrete, backed information and structured answers.
Haunting Past
Perplexity’s rapid rise hasn’t come without turbulence. In mid-2024, the company was hit with accusations from Forbes and Wired, claiming it plagiarized content and bypassed robots.txt protocols, basically sneaking into websites through the side door. Forbes even filed a copyright infringement lawsuit, turning up the legal heat. In response, Perplexity rolled out a revenue-sharing program in July 2024, offering publishers a cut of ad revenue when their content powers search results. The move was part olive branch, part damage control, and a savvy step toward building a more legit, long-term model for AI search that plays nice with IP laws.
If this funding round closes, it’ll not only put more wind in Perplexity’s sails but send a loud message to the industry: the AI search wars aren’t just coming — they’ve already begun. And this time, Perplexity might just be holding the Infinity Gauntlet.
Tipranks’ Comparison Tool
Using Tipranks’ comparison tool, we can examine how publicly traded companies that employ chatbots similar to Perplexity or ChatGPT perform from a broader perspective.
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