Highlights:
- With the funding, Perplexity introduced Enterprise Pro, its inaugural business offering focusing on enhanced security and privacy for enterprise environments.
- The company also provides a more affordable option, Perplexity Pro, priced at USD 20 per month, which includes access to Perplexity Copilot.
Perplexity AI, a startup specializing in generative artificial intelligence search engines, has recently revealed a substantial achievement. Perplexity AI Secured USD 62.7 million in funding for Generative AI Search, reaching USD one billion in valuation.
Daniel Gross, the former AI Head at Y Combinator, spearheaded the funding round. New investors such as Stanley Druckenmiller, Garry Tan (CEO of Y Combinator), and Dylan Field (CEO of Figma Inc.) joined in. Additionally, existing investors like Nvidia Corp., Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, and Amazon.com Inc. Founder Jeff Bezos also contributed to this round.
The funding follows a March report from the Wall Street Journal, which mentioned that Perplexity was seeking more investment after its previous round in January. This latest funding round brings the company’s total funding to USD 165 million.
Despite the recent funding the startup received, a leading media outlet has reported that this might not be the end. According to sources cited by the publication, Perplexity is on the verge of finalizing a significantly larger round of at least USD 250 million, which could potentially elevate the company’s valuation from USD 2.5 billion to USD 3 billion.
Perplexity operates distinctly from conventional search engines, aiming to challenge the search market dominated by giants like Google LLC. Rather than requiring users to input keywords for a list of results, the service offers an AI chatbot. This chatbot enables users to ask questions in natural language about web searches, providing conversational responses.
As a result, the responses are intended to be far more intuitive and understandable compared to a generic list – that’s the objective, at least. These answers also come with comprehensive, verifiable citations from sources, accompanied by multimedia like charts, videos, and images, to offer additional context for searchers. According to the company, this approach eliminates the need for users to sift through confusing lists that might contain spam, advertisements, affiliate links, and other methods used to obscure genuine content. Perplexity’s chatbot aims to surface useful content and summarize it in a manner similar to how another person might.
Accompanying the funding, Perplexity revealed the introduction of Enterprise Pro, its inaugural business-oriented offering tailored to the heightened security and privacy demands of enterprise settings. Priced at USD 40 per month, this new service comes with additional features geared towards bolstered security and data protection, including team member management and the ability to delete queries after seven days.
The company mentioned that Enterprise Pro has been incorporated by clients like Zoom Video Communications Inc.’s product team for focused search, HP Inc.’s sales teams for research purposes, and health editorial teams at Thrive Global, a company focused on well-being and behavior change. These integrations are used to validate updates grounded in peer-reviewed science.
“Perplexity Enterprise Pro has allowed Databricks to substantially accelerate R and D, making it easier for our engineering, marketing and sales teams to execute faster. We estimate it helps our team save 5,000 working hours monthly,” Chief Executive of Databricks, Ali Ghodsi, said.
The company also provides a budget-friendly option with Perplexity Pro, priced at USD 20 per month, granting access to Perplexity Copilot. This enables users to utilize voice-to-text, unlimited file uploads, unlimited search queries, personalized preferences, and image generation capabilities.
Perplexity harnesses the capabilities of various large language models to generate its results. This includes both in-house developed models and external ones like Google’s Gemini, Mistral 7B, Anthropic PBC’s Claude, and OpenAI’s GPT-4. Pro subscribers have the option to choose their preferred model for conversational search queries, enabling a personalized search experience.
Perplexity announced that this funding will drive its global expansion efforts. The company has recently forged partnerships with two of the world’s largest telecom companies: Japan’s SoftBank Corp. and Germany’s Deutsche Telekom. Through these partnerships, Perplexity aims to extend its global presence to an additional audience of over 335 million potential users across mobile and broadband services.