- In The Loop AI
- Posts
- Perplexity to raise $500 million at a $14B valuation
Perplexity to raise $500 million at a $14B valuation
Google’s open model surpasses 150 million downloads
Algot Persson
May 12, 2025
In partnership with
In Today’s Issue:
Perplexity to raise $500 million at a $14B valuation
Google’s open model surpasses 150 million downloads
Read time: 3 minutes
Perplexity to raise $500 million at a $14B valuation
Perplexity is set to raise $500 million at a new $14 billion valuation, which is up from a previous $9 billion valuation last November. Perplexity is creeping towards Google, and if nothing is done, Perplexity could be to Google what Google once was to Yahoo. First reported by WSJ, claims venture-firm Accel will lead the round. It was previously reported in March that Perplexity wanted to raise as much as $1 billion at a $18B valuation. Perplexity is currently backed by Softbank’s Vision 2 fund, Nvidia, and Amazon.com Inc.
Perplexity is an AI-powered search engine founded by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski in December 2022. Earlier this year, they hit a $100 million ARR (annual recurring revenue).
Perplexity
Prompt, run, edit, and deploy full-stack web and mobile apps
Say hello to Bolt.new, your AI-powered web development agent that brings full stack coding to your browser with no setup required. Built on StackBlitz’s WebContainers, Bolt lets you build, edit, and test web applications in real time with simple, chat-based prompts. Just tell the agent what you want to build or change, and watch your code update instantly.
Bolt supports today’s most popular web languages and frameworks, so you can get started fast whether you’re building a React app, deploying with Netlify, or integrating a backend with Supabase for auth, storage, and more. Need a mobile version too? Bolt works with Expo to streamline mobile app development.
Whether you’re a solo builder or part of a product team, Bolt is your fast lane to production-ready code right from your browser.
Google’s open model surpasses 150 million downloads
Google’s Gemma AI models have surpassed 150 million downloads, Google DeepMind’s Omar Sanseviero said over the weekend. More than 70,000 Gemma variants have been created on Hugging Face. Launched in February 2024, Gemma is Google’s response to Meta’s Llama, offering multimodal support and versions tuned for use cases like drug discovery. Despite the milestone, Gemma still trails Llama significantly — Meta’s models have crossed 1.2 billion downloads. Both Gemma and Llama use custom licenses, which have raised concerns among developers over commercial use. Still, the numbers suggest Gemma is gaining traction in the growing “open weight” model landscape.
How was today's newsletter? |
Reply