Perplexity AI, a San Francisco-based AI search engine company, has achieved a significant milestone by securing $62.7 million in funding, leading to a valuation of $1.04 billion. This funding round was led by investor Daniel Gross, former head of AI at Y Combinator, and saw participation from prominent figures like Stan Druckenmiller, NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos, Tobi Lutke, and Garry Tan. Additionally, support came from tech luminaries Andrej Karpathy, Dylan Field, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, as well as venture capital firms Institutional Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates.
Following this funding, Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity AI, outlined the company’s strategic direction, emphasizing plans to expand usage among consumers and knowledge workers within enterprises. This expansion is further facilitated by partnerships with telecommunications giants Deutsche Telekom and SoftBank, aiming to reach a global user base of 116 million.
Previous collaborations with SK Telecom at the Mobile World Congress set the stage for Perplexity AI’s entry into the enterprise market. Earlier in January, the company secured $74 million in funding, achieving a valuation of $540 million.
In a bid to challenge Google, Perplexity AI has integrated AI and chatbot technologies to provide responses to user queries using advanced language models such as GPT-4, Claude 3, and Mistral Large, alongside custom models. The company introduced Perplexity Enterprise Pro, tailored to organizational needs with features like SOC2 integration, SSO, user management, data retention, and security protocols, priced at $40 per month or $400 per year per seat.
Perplexity AI boasts an impressive client roster spanning finance, legal, sports, advertising, software, and hardware sectors. Launch customers include Databricks, Stripe, Zoom, Cleveland Cavaliers, Universal McCann, Paytm, Latham & Watkins, Vercel, Replit, NVIDIA, and HP, utilizing Perplexity AI for various business needs.
For instance, Cleveland uses Perplexity for researching ticket sales trends, HP for crafting sales pitches, Amplitude for market landscape understanding, and Zoom for focused searches.
Founded in 2022 by Andy Konwinski, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity AI’s user-friendly chatbot interface enables users to ask questions and receive concise information with source citations.
