March 2023 Summaries

Perplexity AI, founded in August 2022, reports that its Ask answer engine launched in December 2022 and reached 2 million monthly active users within four months. The company announced a $25.6 million Series A round led by New Enterprise Associates’ Peter Sonsini, joined by prior and new investors including Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, Susan Wojcicki, Paul Buchheit, Soleio, and Databricks Ventures, following a $3.1 million seed round in September 2022. Perplexity’s stated goal is to become a broad knowledge platform that provides fast, accurate, source-cited answers rather than functioning solely as a conventional search engine. To expand its mobile presence, which already represents nearly half of its users through mobile web, it launched an iPhone app featuring cited answers, voice search, follow-up questions, and conversation history.