Perplexity AI revealed today that it has successfully raised $70 million in a recent funding round, marking a pivotal moment in its journey to reshape the landscape of generative AI. 

Leading the funding charge was IVP, with additional backing from NEA, Databricks Ventures, and notable figures such as former Twitter VP Elad Gil, Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke, ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Vercel founder Guillermo Rauch, NVIDIA, and tech luminary Jeff Bezos.

Sources close to the matter disclosed that the funding has propelled Perplexity’s post-money valuation to an impressive $520 million, a noteworthy achievement given the relatively brief period since the company’s establishment in August 2022.

Founded by a skilled team of engineers—Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski—each specialising in AI, distributed systems, search engines, and databases, Perplexity has rapidly gained recognition for its innovative approach. 

Highlighting the platform’s unique value proposition, CEO Aravind Srinivas stated, “With Perplexity, users can get instant answers to any question with full sources and citations included. Perplexity is for anyone and everyone who uses technology to search for information.”

Distinguishing itself from traditional search engines, Perplexity boasts a chatbot-like interface, allowing users to pose queries in natural language. Users can then engage in follow-up questions for a deeper exploration of specific subjects. It also gives citations of the sources. 

At the heart of the Perplexity platform lies a collection of in-house and third-party general AI models. Subscribers to Perplexity’s Pro plan, priced at $20 per month, gain access to a variety of models, including Google’s Gemini, Mistra 7B, Anthropic’s Claude 2.1, and OpenAI’s GPT-4. 

These models offer features such as image generation, unlimited usage of Perplexity’s Copilot (considering personal preferences during searches), and file uploads. The latter feature allows users to upload documents, including images, for models to analyse and formulate detailed responses.

While drawing comparisons to popular general AI tools like Google’s Bard, Microsoft’s Copilot, and ChatGPT, Perplexity stands out with its distinctive chat-forward UI. Notably, it faces competition from the likes of You.com, another search engine startup offering similar AI-powered summarising and source-citing tools, optionally powered by GPT-4.