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Investing.com -- Perplexity AI, an artificial intelligence startup, is reportedly in discussions to raise funds that would value the company at $18 billion, according to reports from Bloomberg and Reuters. This valuation would be double the previous $9 billion valuation reported in November. The company is backed by Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos, and Japan’s SoftBank (TYO:9984) Group.
The startup provides information by searching the internet, similar to Google’s Gemini and ChatGPT. Currently, it is considering raising between $500 million and $1 billion in the upcoming funding round. The popularity of chatbots and AI agents that can execute tasks for users has increased investor interest in such startups.
Perplexity has been enhancing its platform’s features to compete with Google’s Gemini and Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Last month, the company previewed a new web browser named Comet, which employs AI to understand complex queries, carry out tasks, and make decisions. Its Deep Research feature enables the platform to conduct extensive research, running multiple searches and reading numerous sources to produce a comprehensive report.
The AI startup is one of the leading companies aiming to challenge established players in the search engine market, such as Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s Google. Despite this, Perplexity has faced criticism from media outlets like News Corp-owned publications, Forbes, and Wired, accusing the startup of plagiarism and copying content. In response, Perplexity has initiated a publisher partnership program to collaborate with news firms.
OpenAI, another AI company, closed a funding round in October that could value the company at $157 billion, potentially making it one of the world’s most valuable private companies.
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