Nvidia Weighs Investing in Perplexity at a $30 Billion-Plus Valuation
Nvidia is reportedly in talks to invest in AI search company Perplexity through a new funding round that could value it at more than $30 billion, over 50% higher than its roughly $20 billion valuation about a year ago.
What's driving the jump
The discussions center on a funding round potentially worth several billion dollars, with Nvidia, which has held a stake in Perplexity since 2023, among the prospective investors. Neither the investment nor the valuation is confirmed as final; both remain under discussion.
The number behind the interest is Perplexity's revenue growth: its annualized revenue has climbed above $750 million, up from less than $250 million at the start of the year. A meaningful part of that growth is tied to Perplexity Computer, a cloud-based AI agent the company launched to automate computer-based tasks for professional users, a shift from Perplexity's original identity as an AI-powered search alternative to Google toward becoming an agent-driven work tool.
Why this matters to small and medium businesses
Perplexity is positioning itself less as "search with citations" and more as a tool that can complete multi-step work on your behalf. If you've only used it to look things up, it's worth checking whether its newer agent features now cover tasks you're currently doing manually or paying someone else to do.
Rapid revenue growth and a rising valuation are a reasonable, if imperfect, signal of a vendor's staying power. If you're evaluating AI tools to build real workflows around, a company tripling its revenue in under a year and attracting investment from a partner as central to AI infrastructure as Nvidia is a different bet than a startup with an uncertain runway.
The AI search and agent space is consolidating around a few well-funded players fast. Whichever tools you're using today, whether Perplexity, ChatGPT, or Gemini, expect the gap between free and paid tiers, and between search and full task automation, to keep widening as competitors race to fund the same kind of growth.
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