A new AI upstart with a valuation exceeding 140 billion.

Reports suggest that Perplexity has secured a new financing commitment of $200 million from investors, and the company's valuation has reached $20 billion.

According to sources, the artificial intelligence (AI) search engine company Perplexity has obtained a new financing commitment of $200 million (approximately 4.125 billion RMB) from investors, and the company's valuation has reached $20 billion (approximately 142.502 billion RMB).

It is currently unclear who the lead investor in the latest round of financing is. Just two months ago, Perplexity raised $100 million at a valuation of $18 billion.

Perplexity was founded in 2022, and its core product is a research and conversation search engine powered by an AI chatbot. Early investors in the company include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, NVIDIA, and venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates.

According to PitchBook data, since its establishment three years ago, this fast - growing AI company has raised a total of $1.5 billion in financing.

According to informed sources, Perplexity's annual recurring revenue (ARR) is approaching $200 million. Last month, the company's executive in charge of communications said that its ARR had exceeded $150 million.

As AI startups face high operating costs and investors continue to express active investment intentions, such companies are increasingly inclined to raise funds multiple times in a short period.

Perplexity may use this funds for mergers and acquisitions. In the past year, the company has acquired browser developer Sidekick and Carbon (a company that develops software enabling large language models to access data from different applications), and poached some employees from AI application and model development company Rhymes AI.

Perplexity is regarded as a potential challenger to Google's monopoly in the search field. In August this year, Perplexity proposed to acquire Google Chrome browser for $34.5 billion. Previously, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Google of anti - competitive behavior and demanded that it divest its browser business.

However, earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that Google does not need to split its search business, which means Google can continue to retain Chrome.

Perplexity's proposal to acquire the Chrome browser, which is much larger than itself, shows great courage. However, this is not the first time the company has proposed an acquisition of a much larger target.

According to a report by CCTV Finance in January this year, citing informed sources, Perplexity once sent a merger proposal to TikTok, suggesting merging Perplexity AI, TikTok's U.S. division, and new capital partners into a new entity.

Perplexity itself is also a target for acquisition by large companies. It is reported that Apple once internally discussed acquiring Perplexity to make up for its lag in the AI field compared to other tech giants.

However, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas previously stated that he does not want the company to be acquired by large tech giants such as Meta and Google. Srinivas said at the time that he believes both large tech companies and startups have their own space for development in the AI race.

Special statement: The content of this article is for reference only and does not constitute investment advice. Investors should bear the risks associated with their operations based on this information.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Venture Capital Daily", author: Xia Junxiong, published by 36Kr with authorization.