TL;DR:
- Perplexity AI secures $50 million in funding, boosting its valuation to $500 million.
- VC firm IVP leads the investment, showcasing the continued interest in generative AI startups.
- Perplexity’s AI-powered search engine competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.
- The company’s annual recurring revenue stands at $3 million, resulting in a valuation multiple of 150 times ARR.
- Perplexity enables users to extract answers and summarize information from documents.
- Co-founders include former OpenAI and Meta research scientists.
- IVP’s investment highlights its growing focus on generative AI.
Main AI News:
In the midst of the current AI funding frenzy, Perplexity AI is making bold strides to ascend to the summit. Venture capital powerhouse IVP is leading the charge, injecting a substantial $50 million into Perplexity, the brains behind an AI-driven search engine that’s vying for supremacy alongside heavyweights like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.
This latest funding coup catapults the one-year-old company’s valuation to a staggering $500 million, marking a remarkable upswing from its $150 million post-investment valuation just this past March. What’s propelling Perplexity to these dizzying heights is its robust revenue stream, which currently stands at a formidable $3 million in annual recurring revenue, resulting in an eye-popping valuation multiple of approximately 150 times ARR.
What’s even more impressive is that Perplexity is not resting on its laurels. They’re in active discussions to secure an additional $50 million in funding, a mere seven months after their last funding round, underscoring the persistent allure of generative AI startups to investors.
Perplexity’s premium offering empowers users to extract answers and condense information from a variety of uploaded documents, including PDFs, harnessing the capabilities of advanced models such as Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s GPT-4.
At the helm of this AI juggernaut is CEO Aravind Srinivas, a former research scientist at OpenAI. He co-founded Perplexity alongside Denis Yarats, another luminary in the field who previously served as a research scientist at Meta and now holds the position of CTO at Perplexity. Their combined efforts have attracted a growing user base, which has recently swelled to an impressive 15,000 paying customers.
This strategic investment by IVP highlights the firm’s escalating interest in generative AI, following their pivotal role in a $100 million investment in AI language translator DeepL in January, catapulting its valuation to a lofty $1 billion. Just last year, IVP was a key participant in Jasper’s $125 million Series A funding round, elevating the company’s worth to a princely $1.5 billion.
Conclusion:
Perplexity AI’s impressive $50 million funding injection, elevating its valuation to $500 million, reflects the robust investor appetite for generative AI startups. This significant capital influx, combined with a growing user base and strategic partnerships, positions Perplexity for further expansion and innovation in the competitive AI market. IVP’s continued interest in this sector underscores a broader market trend toward AI-driven language and generative technology, indicating sustained growth and potential for disruption in various industries.
