AI-powered search engine Perplexity has raised $500 million in its fourth funding round, tripling its valuation to $9 billion.
According to a report by Bloomberg, led to the latest funding round, which closed earlier this month. The report cited a source who requested anonymity.
Pepralexity was valued at $1 billion in April, rising to $3 billion in June after the Nvidia-backed company received an investment of between $10 million and $20 million from SoftBank Group Vision Fund 2.
Founded in 2022, Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine and chatbot that uses advanced technologies like natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. It differentiates itself from other AI chatbots by providing real-time information.
Startups face competition which has started rolling out search features to all users of ChatGPT.
Meanwhile, Perplexity has acquired Carbon, a data connectivity startup that connects external data sources to big language models.
“We’re excited to announce that we’ve acquired Karbonn, a retrieval engine that connects external data sources to big language models. Soon, we’ll be integrating Karbonn’s data connectors into our tech stack, enabling users to use apps like Nation and Google Docs will allow direct connection to Perplexity,” read the company’s blog.
The company says it aims to make AI more personalized and integrated into users’ daily workflows. With the addition of Carbon, the startup’s Answer Engine will be expanded to access and process information from a variety of sources, including internal databases, cloud storage, and document repositories.
This year, Perplexity also made headlines by introducing revenue sharing partnerships with major publishers such as Time and Fortune, following accusations of plagiarism from some news outlets.