Nvidia is reportedly in discussions to lead or participate in a new funding round for AI startup Perplexity at a valuation of more than $30 billion, according to The Information. The round could be worth several billion dollars, though no deal has been confirmed and talks remain ongoing.
If completed at the reported valuation, Perplexity would see its valuation rise by more than 50% from roughly $20 billion about a year ago. Nvidia is already an investor in Perplexity, so the move would deepen an existing relationship. In July, Perplexity committed to using Nvidia’s new Vera CPUs to run its agent workloads, underscoring growing commercial ties between the two companies.
Perplexity’s annualized revenue has surged to over $750 million, up from less than $250 million at the start of the year. That threefold increase in under 12 months has been partly driven by Perplexity Computer, a cloud-based AI agent that automates professional tasks and expands the company beyond AI-powered search.
Other high-profile Perplexity backers include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Japan’s SoftBank Group. Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas has said the company is aiming to go public in 2028. Earlier this year, Perplexity also agreed to run workloads on Microsoft Azure for $750 million while continuing to use Amazon Web Services as its preferred cloud provider.
Nvidia shares fell 2.16% to $210.09 in Monday afternoon trading. The investment talks have also drawn attention to what regulators describe as circular financing, where Nvidia funds customers who then spend heavily on Nvidia products. The Bank for International Settlements has listed circular financing among the greatest risks to global financial stability, and the Bank of England has warned that the speed of AI investment is unprecedented.
