Perplexity AI, which is essentially a company trying to compete with Google for search. They've just released their own AI browser.
This is a very interesting company in the AI space has just reached an $18 billion valuation.
This is just months after the last funding round.
I want to break down how they're able to do that, what they're able to do with the 18 billion.
And at the same time, Perplexity right now is trying to unlock a completely different growth strategy than OpenAI has used.
they've struck up an absolutely massive partnership that is going to unlock a ton of new users for them.
So I want to cover all of that.
I think this is how it kind of plays into them being able to raise an $18 billion valuation.
But anyways, overall, this is a fascinating company doing some very interesting things that you were not seeing with a lot of the other AI companies.
They're really focusing on growth, and they're doing it in some unique ways.
So we're going to dive into all of that.
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All right, let's get into what perplexity is doing.
So essentially, they just raised it a $14 billion valuation two months ago, they're now at an $18 billion valuation, a $4 billion bump.
This is this is pretty interesting, because in the in the past 18 months, they've went from about $500 million at the beginning beginning of 2024 to now 14 billion in May.
This is a company that is growing insanely fast. They did, I think, get a bit of resistance from investors in this latest May funding round, but the round closed and a bunch of new investors afterwards came to the company.
They told them they could purchase equity in $18 billion valuation.
So that's essentially how that happened.
So this is only a three -year -old company.
It's trying to take on Google right right now, which is pretty impressive.
And the latest growth vector that they're trying to unlock right now is actually India.
So they're taking a completely different approach with this.
Yes, you know, people here in America use it.
But India is a big area that they're focused on.
And they've actually just pulled a brand new it's actually so technically at like growth rate wise, I think last quarter, it grew faster than opening AI in India.
But like, we're talking about, you know, like 8 million users versus like 46 million users or something crazy like that.
So opening eyes like like, still way bigger, and also has way more paid revenue, but they are doing some interesting things to grow, which obviously is helping fuel their valuation, and kind of market saturation, so the big thing that they recently did, they just partnered this week with Baradi Intel, which Airtel, which is Baharti Airtel, which is India's second biggest telecom operator, there's Reliant Geo, which is the number one, so this is the second biggest, and they are offering 12 -month Perplexity Pro subscriptions to anyone on Behartie AirTel.
So this is normally worth about $200.
And if you want to know how many people are using this company, it's 360 million subscribers right now.
So 360 million people are going to get access to Perplexity Pro for free if they would like to take them up on it.
This is an exclusive deal, which means that no other telco in that in India can actually offer perplexity services.
Now, what blew me away is that's including free access.
So if you would like to use perplexity in India, you have to go through them, period.
And this is, I guess, kind of the way the deal works.
They probably are paying some sort of discounted rate for the premium, you know, premium seats or whatever they can give away to people.
But perplexity is not able, you know, not able to access it basically through anyone else other than them.
So to me, that was very very interesting.
Uh, I think obviously perplex is willing to do that because, you know, this is the opportunity to potentially have, you know, an extra 360 million users, which would make their valuation, you know, their usage go up a ton and make their valuation go up a ton.
They'd be able to raise a ton of money from investors.
So to them, I think they're just looking at it as a growth metric.
I don't know how long, like the terms of this deal, how long this lasts as a 12 month engagement.
This is a multi -year thing overall, you know, like I think perplex, it doesn't want to get themselves stuck where there's only one way you can ever access or use perplexity.
But at the end of the day, it's a I think this is a pretty good deal for them to to actually grow.
So Airtel's partnership is one of perplexities biggest moves, I think, yet in what they've basically been doing.
They have their partnerships with more than 25 telcos globally.
They made a bunch of deals with SoftBank in Japan and SK Telecom in South Korea.
So I think at the end end of the day, they're trying a bit of a different, like approach, where they're reaching out directly to telecommunication companies who are helping push them forward, get them users, and, you know, offer this free service to their, to their, to their customers to help and perplexes happy because it's helping to grow what they what they have going on, you know, all their total usage.
So perplexes already getting a ton of traction in India, like I mentioned, so it's actually the Q2 of this year, downloads in India went up 600 % year over year.
So but that's about 2 .8 million.
This is according to sensor tower, which kind of shares some of this type of data.
So if we're comparing this, though, it's not, I feel like it's not really a fair comparison, like 600 % sounds crazy.
But chat GPT and chat GPT had about a 587 % increase.
So like a lot, but less.
But ChatGPT is at 46 .7 million downloads.
So they're at 2 .8 million.
It's just, it's like, you know, it's a lot and it's growing a lot, but it's not.
It's not 46 million yet.
So obviously, OpenAI is, you know, definitely winning in this.
I would say, though, the growth trend is extended to active users as well.
Perplexity is monthly active users in India is up 640 % year over year in a lot in Q2.
ChatGPT has grew by 350%.
So when you're actually talking about active users, it's really, really good numbers for Perplexity.
I would say ChatGPT has a huge lead in absolute numbers.
They have 19 .8 million monthly active users versus Perplexity, which has 3 .7 million monthly active users in India.
So, you know, great.
I think there's a lot of potential here.
But you could see why they would make this kind of deal with a telecommunication company in India, if they have, you know, let's say 3 .7 million monthly active users in India, and there's potential to reach 300 million, I think they're going to try to take that going to try to take that leap and, and essentially get extra users from something like this.
So their CEO of perplexity has made a whole bunch of commitments to India to try to work with them to try to develop things there.
I think he's really trying to build a lot of strong partnerships there.
I think we see India as a really important market.
Even Google has launched updates to Google Gemini in India before they released it to a lot of other countries.
So I think this is one of the big markets to keep an eye on as we look at companies trying to expand their growth rate.
And the number one thing to know, though, is India versus United States.
Obviously, India is much more price sensitive.
So when ChatGPT is thriving in the United States, they're making orders of magnitude more money from that than their India users over in India.
So definitely something to keep an eye on.
But usage is usage.
And I think this is all things that will help to raise more money, talk to investors, and grow the company overall.
So very exciting times over at Perplexity.
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