Perplexity AI
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Investors
Founders
About
Perplexity AI is an AI-powered search engine founded in August 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski 12. Srinivas previously held research positions at OpenAI, Google Brain, and DeepMind; Yarats was an AI research scientist at Meta; Ho was an engineer at Quora and quantitative trader at Tower Research Capital; and Konwinski was a co-founder of Databricks 2. The company launched its search engine on December 7, 2022 1. As of September 2025, Perplexity was valued at $20 billion and had raised over $1.5 billion in total funding 3.
Funding History
| Round | Date | Amount | Lead Investor(s) | Key Co-Investors | Valuation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | 2022-09 | $3.1M | Elad Gil, Nat Friedman | Yann LeCun, Andrej Karpathy, Ashish Vaswani, Amjad Masad, Clem Delangue, Pieter Abbeel | Not disclosed 10 |
| Series A | 2023-03-28 | $25.6M | NEA (Peter Sonsini) | Databricks Ventures, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, Bob Muglia, Jeff Dean, Paul Buchheit | Not disclosed 411 |
| Series B | 2024-01-04 | $73.6M | IVP | NVIDIA, NEA, Bessemer Venture Partners, Elad Gil, Jeff Bezos (Bezos Expeditions), Nat Friedman, Databricks, Tobi Lutke, Guillermo Rauch, Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, Kindred Ventures | $520M 141516 |
| Series C | 2024-04 | $62.7M | Daniel Gross | Jeff Bezos, NVIDIA, Stan Druckenmiller, Tobias Lutke, Garry Tan | $1B |
| Series D | 2024-12 | $500M | IVP, SoftBank | Jeff Bezos, NVIDIA | $9B |
| Series E | 2025-05-12 | $500M | Accel | — | $14B 7 |
| Extension | 2025-07-17 | $100M | Accel | NVIDIA, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, NEA, IVP | $18B 1213 |
| Round | 2025-09-10 | $200M | — | — | $20B |
What Investors Say
No independently sourced investor testimonials found.
What Founders Say
No independently sourced founder testimonials found.
Sources
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Perplexity AI, Wikipedia, accessed March 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perplexity_AI↩↩↩
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Entrepreneurloop, “Perplexity AI Origin Story: How Founders Built $18B Search Engine,” accessed March 2026. https://entrepreneurloop.com/perplexity-ai-origin-story-founders-journey/↩↩↩
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TechCrunch, “Perplexity reportedly raised $200M at $20B valuation,” September 10, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/10/perplexity-reportedly-raised-200m-at-20b-valuation/↩↩
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Latham & Watkins, “Latham & Watkins Advises Perplexity.AI in US$25.6 Million Series A Financing,” March 2023. https://www.lw.com/en/news/2023/03/latham-advises-perplexityai-in-series-a-financing↩↩
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TexAu, “How Much Did Perplexity Raise? Funding & Key Investors,” accessed March 2026. https://www.texau.com/profiles/perplexity↩
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Latham & Watkins, “Latham & Watkins Advises Perplexity AI in US$62.7 Million Series C Funding Round,” April 2024. https://www.lw.com/en/news/2024/04/latham-watkins-advises-perplexity-ai-in-us62-7-million-series-b-funding-round↩
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CNBC, “Perplexity AI wrapping talks to raise $500 million at $14 billion valuation,” May 12, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/12/perplexity-funding-round-comet.html↩↩
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PYMNTS, “Report: Perplexity Closed $500 Million Funding Round in Early December,” December 2024. https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2024/report-perplexity-closed-500-million-funding-round-in-early-december/↩
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Britannica Money, “Perplexity AI | Founders, Investors, & Facts,” accessed March 2026. https://www.britannica.com/money/Perplexity-AI↩
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Perplexity AI, “Announcing Our Series A Funding Round and Mobile App Launch,” March 28, 2023 (references the prior $3.1M seed led by Elad Gil and Nat Friedman). https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/announcing-our-series-a-funding-round-and-mobile-app-launch↩↩
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Benzinga / PR Newswire, “Perplexity AI Launches iOS Version of Conversational Answer Engine, Announces $25.6M Series A Round Led by NEA,” March 28, 2023. https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/23/03/n31525879/perplexity-ai-launches-ios-version-of-conversational-answer-engine-announces-25-6m-series-a-round-↩↩
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Bloomberg, “Aravind Srinivas’ Startup Perplexity AI Valued at $18 Billion With New Funding,” July 17, 2025. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-17/ai-startup-perplexity-valued-at-18-billion-with-new-funding↩↩
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PYMNTS, “Perplexity AI Hits $18 Billion Valuation in Latest Funding Round,” July 18, 2025. https://www.pymnts.com/artificial-intelligence-2/2025/perplexity-ai-hits-18-billion-valuation-in-latest-funding-round/↩↩
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Perplexity AI blog, “Perplexity raises Series B funding round,” January 4, 2024. Accessed July 2026. https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/blog/perplexity-raises-series-b-funding-round — Perplexity’s own announcement of $73.6M Series B led by IVP with returning investors NEA, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, Databricks and new investors NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos (via Bezos Expeditions Fund), Tobi Lutke, Bessemer Venture Partners, Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, Guillermo Rauch, Austen Allred, Factorial Funds, and Kindred Ventures. ↩↩
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Cointelegraph, “Perplexity raises $73M Series B off reported $520M valuation for AI-powered search engine,” January 4, 2024. Accessed July 2026. https://cointelegraph.com/news/perplexity-artificial-intelligence-raises-73-m-series-b-off-520-m-valuation-ai-powered-search-engine — Independent contemporaneous confirmation of $73.6M Series B at $520M post-money on 2024-01-04, IVP-led, Bessemer Venture Partners named as new investor. ↩↩
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Latham & Watkins, “Latham & Watkins Advises Perplexity.AI in US$73.6 Million Series B Financing,” January 5, 2024. Accessed July 2026. https://www.lw.com/en/news/latham-watkins-advises-perplexityai-in-us73-6-million-series-b-financing — Primary source from Perplexity’s outside legal counsel confirming US$73.6M Series B at US$520M valuation led by IVP with participants NVIDIA, NEA, Bessemer Venture Partners, Elad Gil, Jeff Bezos, Nat Friedman, Databricks, Tobi Lutke, Guillermo Rauch, Naval Ravikant, and Balaji Srinivasan. ↩↩