Backed By Jeff Bezos, This IITian's AI Startup Is Challenging Google's Dominance

Founded by IITian Aravind Srinivas, an AI startup is making waves in the artificial industry, even to the extent that it is being seen as a challenge for the mighty Google. Noticing its potential, billionaire Jeff Bezos has invested in this start-up Perplexity, although it is not known how much the amount is.

Earlier this year, the AI startup had raised nearly $74 million in a funding round, which included Jeff Bezos, Nvidia and Shopify.

Who Is Jeff Bezos Backed AI Startup's IITian CEO?

perplexity founders/fortune

AI startup Perplexity was co-founded by its CEO Aravind Srinivas in August 2022, along with Johnny Hoa nd Denis Yarats. Srinivas had graduated from IIT Madras in 2017, earning a dual degree (B.Tech and M.Tech) in electrical engineering. Post that, he completed his PhD in computer science from the University of California in 2021.

As far as his career is concerned, the IITian had initially worked as intern at OpenAI, DeepMind and Google, before returning to take up the role of Research Scientist at Sam Altman's AI firm from Sept 2021 to August 2022. Then he left OpenAI to start his own AI startup Perplexity, which is based in California.

What Does His AI Startup Perplexity Do?

perplexity aravind srinivas jeff bezos/indiatimes

Founded by IITian Aravind Srinivas, AI startup Perplexity is reportedly valued at $520 million, and is being seen as a start-up that transforms the way people search for information online through artificial intelligence. Its product is a "answer engine"¡ªa forum where users can "ask anything".

The Wall Street Journal claims that Perplexity uses OpenAI's GPT technology to function as a chatbot-style search engine. It has been observed that it uses data from online sources, which it includes with its response, to generate a direct text response to queries instead of providing website links.

Also Read; Why This Jeff Bezos & Bill Gates Backed $3 Billion Startup Is Shutting Down

How The Startup Is Challenging Google's Dominance?

perplexity google challenge/getty

Talking to the Wall Street Journal, Perplexity's IITian CEO Aravind Srinivas had once said, "If you can directly answer somebody¡¯s question, nobody needs those 10 blue links." He said that a more powerful version of Perplexity¡¯s search engine that uses GPT-4, OpenAI¡¯s most advanced technology, can be accessed for $20 a month.

¡°Google has no incentive to actually move fast and nail this product experience because their core money is coming from making people click on links and view links. Right now, our core money is coming from being the best¡±, Srinivas had said, as per Fortune report. Srinivas is fairly popular on X too, having about 59,000 followers at present.

In an article published on its official website, Perplexity wrote, "We¡¯ve raised $73.6 million in Series B funding from trusted VC firms and prominent tech visionaries. IVP led the round with continued support from our Seed and Series A investors NEA, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, and Databricks, as well as new investors NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions Fund), Tobi Lutke, Bessemer Venture Partners, Naval Ravikant, Balaji Srinivasan, Guillermo Rauch, Austen Allred, Factorial Funds, and Kindred Ventures, among others."

According to data gathered by WSJ, 10 million users visit Perplexity's website and mobile app each month. 53 million visits were made in November alone, compared to 2.2 million during the first month the service was made available in December 2022.

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