NVIDIA Once Considered Investing Billions in Perplexity Technology, Now Planning to Acquire Stake at $30 Billion Valuation

Dynamic Beat AI News, The Information reported that NVIDIA is in discussions to participate in Perplexity's new funding round. Perplexity focuses on AI search and agents. The new valuation is expected to exceed $30 billion, with a funding size of billions of dollars. Compared to a $20 billion valuation in September 2025, the new valuation has increased by at least 50%.

Perplexity's annualized revenue has grown from less than $2.5 billion at the beginning of the year to over $7.5 billion now, up from $5 billion in April. Perplexity Computer is a significant contributor to this growth.

NVIDIA had previously considered another plan: spending billions to acquire some of Perplexity's technology licenses and poach a group of employees. Later, the negotiations shifted to a common stock investment. The reason for this change is currently unclear.

Just last week, NVIDIA used a "license + poach" strategy with Poolside: paying $6 billion for model development software licenses, planning to hire over 100 employees, and investing an additional $1 billion. Perplexity had once discussed a similar deal but is now opting for direct equity participation.