The information technology (IT) outlet The Information reported on the 10th (local time) that artificial intelligence (AI) startup Perplexity secured commitments from investors for a new $200 million (about 270 billion won) funding round at a $20 billion (about 27.8 trillion won) valuation.
Perplexity, founded in 2022 by Aravind Srinivas and others from OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is an AI-based search engine startup challenging Google, the dominant player in the search market. Last month, there was also a report that Perplexity proposed to Google that it would acquire the Google web browser Chrome for $34.5 billion (about 4.8 trillion won).
The acquisition offer exceeds Perplexity's valuation by a wide margin. Perplexity has received investments from Nvidia and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, among others. In Jul., it also released its own AI-based web browser, "Comet."
Beyond Perplexity, investment money has recently been flowing into AI corporations. French AI startup Mistral AI, which built the "European version of ChatGPT," raised 1.7 billion euros in a recent funding round led by Dutch semiconductor equipment company ASML. With this fundraising, Mistral was valued at 11.7 billion euros. Bloomberg News reported on the 2nd of this month that Anthropic, seen as a rival to OpenAI, raised a new $13 billion and lifted its valuation to $183 billion.
OpenAI raised $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation in Mar. It is recently said to be discussing a plan that would allow current and former employees to sell their shares to investors at a $500 billion valuation.