She is one of the darlings of Silicon Valley in the artificial intelligence sector. Perplexity, the company that competes with other major players, has decided to begin negotiations with a view to raising new funds. Objective: value the company to the tune of $8 billion.
Perplexity never stops growing
As detailed in Wall Street Journalthis big name in AI has already completed three rounds of financing this year, which is by no means trivial in this industry. It is experiencing rapid growth, which illustrates the interest of investors in this technology.
In any case, and even if the objective is met, it will still be very far from OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, whose valuation has already reached $157 billion. According to the economic daily, the startup is currently showing fairly modest financial results.
Thus, its annual turnover is currently around $50 million, according to informed sources. But it is progressing at a rapid rate, since estimates made in March indicated $10 million in annual turnover.
As a reminder, the main product of this company is an AI-based search engine. Its model is currently based on the sale of premium subscriptions to users who are individuals, but also businesses. It currently claims 15 million requests per day, and this figure is increasing quite quickly.
Perplexity also has to deal with accusations from several media outlets who accuse it of having used their content without authorization. A burning issue which also impacts other players in the industry.
Perplexity bets on advertising
As a reminder, Perplexity seeks to generate new revenue to find the path to profitability. It is in this sense that the company announced an experiment with advertising on its search engine in the United States a few weeks ago.
The company defends this initiative as follows:
Advertising programs like this help us generate revenue to share with our publishing partners. Experience has taught us that subscriptions alone do not generate enough revenue to create a sustainable revenue sharing program. Advertising is the best way to ensure a stable and scalable income stream.
Knowing the very hot topic of confidentiality, the company also specifies that its customers will never have access to users’ personal data. Coincidence or not, OpenAI, which until now refused to add advertising, announced that it was studying this question this week. To find out more, do not hesitate to reread our article here.
