AI startup Perplexity has raised $100 million at a valuation of $18 billion. The company's value has grown by $4 billion since May 2025, according to Bloomberg.
The deal continues from the previous funding round, with new investors expressing interest at the higher valuation.
Perplexity is an AI search engine that competes with Google by combining artificial intelligence, web search, and data analytics capabilities. The company recently introduced the Comet browser, featuring a built-in assistant that can perform tasks on behalf of users.
Perplexity serves around 30 million users and has reported annual revenue of $150 million.
Betting on India
While OpenAI is strengthening its position in the U.S., Perplexity is quietly making inroads in India. The startup is rapidly attracting millions of users in the world’s second-largest internet and smartphone market.
On July 17, the company launched a partnership with Bharti Airtel, one of India’s largest telecom operators, offering a free annual Pro subscription (normally $200) to all of the operator’s 360 million customers.
The deal is exclusive—no other company will be able to offer a similar service.
This new partnership is one of Perplexity’s most significant steps in its global expansion strategy, which now includes agreements with more than 25 telecom operators worldwide, such as recently announced contracts with SoftBank in Japan and SK Telecom in South Korea.
Earlier this year, Perplexity partnered with Indian fintech giant Paytm, offering users access to the AI search engine through the Paytm app, which has been downloaded over 500 million times. Paytm is among the top three platforms in the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) network created by the Indian government, processing more than 1.2 billion transactions worth over 1.34 trillion Indian rupees (about $15.6 billion) each month.
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas has taken direct steps to expand the company’s presence in India. In January, he announced plans to hire a local top executive but later put the process on hold due to an “overwhelming” response. He also announced a $1 million investment and pledged to personally devote five hours per week to a group developing artificial intelligence technology in India.
Clear Progress
According to Sensor Tower, Perplexity app downloads in India grew 600% year-over-year to 2.8 million in the second quarter. In comparison, ChatGPT saw a 587% increase to 46.7 million downloads.
This growth in active users confirms the overall trend. In the second quarter, the number of monthly active users (MAUs) in India grew 640% year-over-year for Perplexity.
ChatGPT had a 350% growth rate in MAUs. However, the OpenAI chatbot still leads by a large margin in absolute numbers: 19.8 million active users per month compared to Perplexity’s 3.7 million.
Why India?
TechCrunch notes that Perplexity sees India as its priority market for expansion. The country has very few localized AI startups in the search engine space, but boasts a large, active audience of tech-savvy users.
Despite its expanding user base, Perplexity still faces challenges in monetization. The company lags far behind ChatGPT in revenue, although both offer subscriptions at $20 per month.
According to Sensor Tower, ChatGPT's revenue in the second quarter grew 731% year-over-year to $773 million, while Perplexity saw 300% growth to just $8 million in revenue.
