Perplexity AI is raising a US$50 million venture fund to back new artificial intelligence startups, as its valuation grows and the company begins offering new products.
While Perplexity AI will be an anchor investor in the Perplexity F7 Fund I, its general partners and much of its capital are from outside sources, according to CNBC.
The company raised US$500 million in a December funding round, and began offering advertisements in November. “To fully deliver on our mission to spark the world’s curiosity, we need to invest in building not just a beloved product, but a robust and self-sustaining business,” Perplexity AI said at the time.
The Perplexity F7 Fund I will be managed by general partners f7 Ventures’ Kelly Graziadei and Joanna Lee Shevelenko. f7 Ventures similarly focusses on early-stage technology startups.
The company also announced this week that it would launch a web browser named Comet for agentic AI searches. Comet’s waitlist is now open, though Perplexity AI has not yet provided a release date.
Last week, it released a Deep Research AI tool capable of synthesising information from multiple online sources into a longer report. OpenAI’s ChatGPT added a similar research function at the beginning of February, and Google Gemini added its tool in December.
Perplexity AI reached a valuation of US$9 billion in December after a series of funding rounds and investments, rising rapidly from just $1 billion in April last year.
It has partnered with companies like Indeed and Whole Foods Market to offer advertising on its platform, and with media organisations like the Los Angeles Times to share a portion of its ad revenue with information publishers.
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