Perplexity, the developer of AI-powered search engines, is raising $50 million in seed and pre-seed investment funds, CNBC reports. While the majority of the capital comes from limited partners, embarrassment uses some of the capital it has gathered to help the company grow to lock the fund. It reportedly raised $500 million at a $9 billion valuation in January.
Perplexity's fund is managed by general partners Kelly Graziadei and Joanna Lee Shevelenko, who co-founded early-stage venture F7 Ventures in 2018, according to Pitchbook data. F7 is investing in startups such as the women's health company Midi. It is not clear whether Graziadei and Shevelenko will continue to run F7 or whether they will concentrate all their energy on Perplexity's venture fund.
Openai also manages an investment fund known as the Openai Startup Fund. Unlike confusion, however, Openai insists that it does not use its own capital for these investments.