Japanese investing firm SoftBank is looking to invest up to $20 million through its Vision Fund 2. Perplexity, for those not aware, is an AI startup that leverages a variety of LLMs to sift through relevant search results related to your query to compose a normally accurate answer.
This investment from SoftBank is not the only investment from a high-profile company. In January, Perplexity AI raised $73.6 million from a group of investors which included Nvidia and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The investment in January was made while Perplexity had a valuation of $520 million. Meanwhile, the latest investment was made at a valuation of $3 billion.
The sources said that they didn't want to be identified because the deal hasn't been finalised yet, and the terms could still change. Neither of the companies provided comments to Reuters about the matter either, which is normal in these situations.
According to Perplexity, its service has served more than 500 million queries in 2023 without spending too much on advertising. As more people learn about it, the number of queries will increase. What's impressive about Perplexity is that it's a startup and not one of the AI services that has been launched by tech giants that can make everyone aware it exists at the drop of a hat.
Perplexity has been touted as a Google Search killer despite not being a search engine itself but rather an answer engine. It's unlikely to supplant Google Search but will probably be used alongside it, especially by mobile users who want to find answers to questions. Google has tried to stay relevant against Perplexity by launching AI Overviews, which also answer queries using AI.
Perplexity has received some negative press this month, Forbes accused the company of theft while Wired claimed Perplexity plagiarised one of its stories.
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