By leveraging artificial intelligence to transform the landscape of online information retrieval, Jeff Bezos has thrown his support behind a company valued at $520 million that seeks to disrupt Google’s stronghold in the realm of online search.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, the company’s flagship product, Perplexity, serves as a platform for posing inquiries, dubbed an “answer engine” by its team of under 40 based in San Francisco.
Perplexity functions as a chatbot-style search engine powered by OpenAI’s GPT systems to provide responses to user queries.
Rather than relying on conventional web links, it furnishes direct textual answers sourced from online data, which are seamlessly integrated into its replies.
CEO Aravind Srinivas emphasized to The Journal the significance of promptly addressing user queries over the conventional approach of presenting numerous links.
For a subscription fee of $20 per month, users can access an enhanced version of Perplexity’s search engine that harnesses the advanced GPT-4 technology developed by OpenAI.
The concept intrigued Bezos, along with other tech luminaries and venture capitalists, who collectively injected $73.6 million into Perplexity’s recent Series B funding round, as announced in a blog post on Wednesday.
Through his Missions Fund, Jeff Bezos, alongside other software executives and venture capitalists, spearheaded the fundraising effort, although the exact portion contributed by Bezos remains undisclosed.
The substantial investment, totaling $73.6 million, represents the largest funding secured by an internet search startup in recent memory, bolstered by ongoing support from existing Seed and Series A investors, as well as fresh backing from NVIDIA and Jeff Bezos through the Bezos Expeditions Fund, among others, according to The Journal.
Bezos, the visionary behind Amazon, has been actively channeling resources into AI initiatives, including a notable $4 billion allocation towards the generative AI startup Anthropic, known for its chatbot Claude, positioning it as a potential competitor to ChatGPT.
Perplexity, as per reports, has amassed \(100 million in funding to date, propelling the company’s valuation to \)520 million.
Srinivas, as indicated on his LinkedIn profile, transitioned from a brief stint as a research scientist at OpenAI to co-founding Perplexity in August 2022, following prior engagements as a research intern at Google.
Citing data from Similarweb, The Journal notes that Perplexity’s website and mobile applications collectively attract 10 million users monthly, with a surge to 53 million visits in November alone, marking a substantial increase from 2.2 million visits in December 2022.
With a search engine that prioritizes textual responses over traditional site links, Perplexity sets its sights on challenging Google’s dominance in the search arena.
Despite Google’s executives, including former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki and AI research specialist Jeff Dean, personally investing in Perplexity, the company remains steadfast in its mission to chip away at Google’s commanding 90% market share in online search.
While Perplexity endeavors to surpass Google, a formidable task given Alphabet’s $1.74 trillion market cap, the startup faces hurdles in scaling its operations with a team size yet to breach the 50-member mark, as highlighted in The Journal’s analysis.
As of now, Perplexity has not initiated the process of going public on a stock exchange, leaving its future listing intentions ambiguous.
