By Jaspreet Singh
(Reuters) -Perplexity AI is in talks to raise funds at an $18 billion valuation, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday, as the Nvidia-backed startup looks to grow and capture soaring demand for its search tools.
The jump in valuation doubles the previous $9 billion figure, reported by Reuters in November.
Perplexity is an AI startup that provides information by searching the internet, just like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, and is backed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and Japan’s SoftBank Group.
The company has discussed raising between $500 million and $1 billion in the round, the report added.
The AI startup has been upgrading features on its platform to better compete with Google’s Gemini and Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
OpenAI closed a $6.6 billion funding round in October, which could value the company at $157 billion and cement its position as one of the most valuable private companies in the world.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram, Jaspreet Singh and Kritika Lamba in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)
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