Perplexity is a privately held, founder-led company with no single owner. Its four co-founders, employees and venture investors including IVP, NEA, Accel, Nvidia, SoftBank and Jeff Bezos hold its equity, and Perplexity has not published a cap table. Its last confirmed round, reported by The Information and TechCrunch in September 2025, valued it at $20 billion, and The Information reported in August 2026 that Nvidia was discussing a round above $30 billion.
Part of EPR's Technology coverage. Updated November 3, 2026. For the larger AI labs, see who owns OpenAI and who owns Anthropic.
Who owns Perplexity today?
Perplexity is owned by its founders, its employees and a group of venture and strategic investors, and no holder has been reported as a majority owner. The table groups the owners named in funding coverage, drawing on RevenueMemo's funding review and the reporting of Bloomberg and The Information.
| Owner group | Named holders | What is known |
|---|
| Co-founders | Aravind Srinivas (CEO), Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, Andy Konwinski | Founded the company in August 2022; exact stakes not disclosed |
| Venture leads | IVP, NEA, Accel | IVP led the Series B and Series D; Accel led a $500 million round at a $14 billion valuation, per Bloomberg |
| Strategic investors | Nvidia, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Databricks Ventures | Backers rather than controlling holders |
| Individual investors | Jeff Bezos and other angels | Early and ongoing backers |
| Employees | Current and former staff | Hold options and shares; amounts not disclosed |
Perplexity has raised more than $1.5 billion in total, according to Tech Funding News and RevenueMemo, all of it equity. Because no cap table is public, any percentage quoted for a single investor is an estimate.
How much is Perplexity worth?
Perplexity's last confirmed valuation is $20 billion, set by a $200 million round reported by The Information in September 2025. No closed round above $20 billion had been announced as of Value Add VC's November 1, 2026 review. Nvidia's reported talks in August 2026 point to a higher price, but Perplexity declined to comment on them.
| Date | Round | Valuation | Reported by |
|---|
| Early 2025 | $500 million, led by Accel | $14 billion | Bloomberg |
| July 2025 | $100 million extension | $18 billion | Bloomberg |
| September 2025 | $200 million | $20 billion | The Information, TechCrunch |
| August 2026 | Nvidia in talks, not closed | Above $30 billion | The Information, Reuters |
Who founded Perplexity?
Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho and Andy Konwinski founded Perplexity in August 2022 in San Francisco, according to company profiles. Srinivas is chief executive officer and had worked at OpenAI, Google Brain and DeepMind before founding the company, according to those profiles. Yarats came from Meta's AI research group, and Konwinski is also a co-founder of Databricks.
The founders' continued role matters for ownership. Perplexity's leadership has said the company plans to stay independent, and Srinivas has ruled out a sale to a large technology firm, according to YourStory's coverage of the 2025 funding.
Is Perplexity going public?
Perplexity says it plans to go public in 2028. Srinivas told CNBC on June 9, 2026 that the company intends to list, according to Value Add VC's summary of the interview. Until then, Perplexity remains private, and its ownership will become public only through an IPO filing.
Perplexity is not owned by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, SoftBank or Bezos, even though some hold stakes or supply infrastructure.
How does Perplexity make money?
Perplexity makes money mainly from paid subscriptions, with an advertising revenue share for publishers still described as early. Its consumer plans are Pro, Max and the $5 Comet Plus tier, and Jessica Chan, its head of publisher partnerships, told Digiday that the ad business was still nascent. Tech Funding News reported annualized revenue of about $750 million in August 2026, a figure drawn from reporting rather than a company filing.
The revenue mix affects ownership because investors price Perplexity on growth. A $30 billion valuation at $750 million of annualized revenue is close to 40 times sales, per Tech Funding News, which is why the 2028 listing target and the Nvidia talks are watched together.
How does Perplexity market itself, and which agencies work with it?
Perplexity markets itself through high-visibility business moves and publisher partnerships rather than conventional advertising. EPR's profile of the New York agency Six Eastern, led by founder and CEO Emilie Gerber, lists Perplexity among its clients, and Perplexity also has an in-house head of publisher partnerships, Jessica Chan. The moves below are the ones trade press documented.
| Date | Move | What it did for the brand | Reported by |
|---|
| January 2025 | Proposed a merger of Perplexity with TikTok's U.S. operations, valued at up to $50 billion | Put Perplexity in the TikTok headlines | Press coverage of the proposal |
| July 2025 | Launched the Comet AI browser | Moved Perplexity from search into browsing | Storyboard18 |
| August 2025 | Made an unsolicited all-cash offer of $34.5 billion for Google Chrome | Drew attention to Comet during Google's antitrust case | Reuters |
| August 2025 | Launched Comet Plus, a $5 monthly tier that pays publishers 80% of its revenue from a $42.5 million pool | Gave publishers a revenue share to answer content-use criticism | Digiday |
| October 2025 | Made Comet free and added publishers such as CNN, The Washington Post and Condé Nast titles to Comet Plus | Widened distribution | TechRepublic |
Perplexity's publisher program already included Fortune, Gannett, Time, Der Spiegel and The Independent, per Digiday. The pattern is large public bids and partner announcements timed around product launches, which many commentators read as a visibility strategy. That reading is analysis from outside observers, not a Perplexity statement. For practitioner detail, see EPR's Perplexity for PR guide, its analysis of how Perplexity picks brands to cite, and the Six Eastern agency profile.
How does Perplexity's ownership compare with OpenAI's and Anthropic's?
Perplexity is the smallest of the three by last reported valuation, and unlike OpenAI it has not published stake percentages. The table sets the three side by side using each company's last reported figures.
| Company | Who controls it | Largest named outside holders | Latest reported valuation |
|---|
| OpenAI | Nonprofit OpenAI Foundation appoints the board | Microsoft, about 27% at the October 2025 closing | $852 billion, March 2026 |
| Anthropic | Seven co-founders and a Long-Term Benefit Trust; stakes not public | Amazon and Google, each above 5% | $965 billion, May 2026 |
| Perplexity | Co-founders and venture investors; no cap table | IVP, NEA, Accel, Nvidia, SoftBank | $20 billion, September 2025 |
The comparison shows that only OpenAI has published stake percentages, and only because its recapitalization required it. Anthropic has not published exact stakes either, and its October 2026 S-1 names its largest holders only as above 5%. Perplexity would face the same disclosure step if it goes public in 2028, as Srinivas told CNBC it plans to. EPR's OpenAI ownership page and Anthropic ownership page explain how each structure works.
How should communications teams describe Perplexity's ownership?
Communications teams should describe Perplexity as a privately held company backed by named investors, not as a subsidiary or a Nvidia company. Four wording rules keep copy accurate:
- Write "founder-led and venture-backed" rather than "owned by Nvidia," since Nvidia is an investor.
- Attach a date and a source to every valuation, for example "$20 billion in September 2025."
- Do not print ownership percentages for any investor, because none has been disclosed.
- Label the $30 billion figure as reported talks until a round closes.
Readers who want the citation side of Perplexity can read EPR's Perplexity Citation Source Index.
The decision for a communications team is to cite a named, dated funding report for every Perplexity valuation and to leave out ownership percentages until Perplexity files for an IPO.
