AI startup Perplexity is in funding talks to double its valuation to $8 billion or more. The company is looking to raise around $500 million in its fourth round of funding within a year, according to the Wall Street Journal. The move comes on the heels of major investments in OpenAI and is intended to show how interested investors are in AI startups with market potential.
Perplexity is a combination search engine and AI chatbot. The company, which is backed by Jeff Bezos, searches the web for up-to-date information and answers questions in a similar way to ChatGPT. The startup’s annual revenue is estimated at around $50 million, up from just over $10 million in March. Perplexity makes money from premium subscriptions, a new enterprise version for corporate customers, and plans to sell advertising soon. The search engine receives about 15 million queries per day. But the company also faces criticism from Web site owners who accuse Perplexity of using their content without permission.