Nvidia is discussing an investment in Perplexity AI that would value the search startup at more than $30 billion, according to The Information. Neither company has confirmed the deal.
Nvidia is in talks to invest in Perplexity as part of a new funding round that would value the search startup at more than $30 billion, according to The Information. Perplexity declined to comment. Nvidia hasn't confirmed the talks either. If it closes, this would be one of Nvidia's largest single bets yet on a company that exists partly to spend money on Nvidia's own chips.
That's the strange loop running through nearly every headline Nvidia makes these days: the chipmaker sells the GPUs that power AI, then turns round and writes cheques to the startups buying them. Perplexity would be the newest name on that list. The number attached to it, more than $30 billion, marks a jump of over 50% from the roughly $20 billion valuation the company locked in with a $200 million raise back in June, according to reporting from Yahoo Finance and Rappler. That's a steep climb in two months.
The growth behind the number #
Perplexity has grown fast this year. Annualized revenue climbed past $750 million, up from under $250 million at the start of 2026. Some of that is coming from Perplexity Computer, a cloud based AI agent that automates computer tasks for professional users, and from Comet, the company's AI browser. Comet went free worldwide in October 2025 and, according to app store tracking cited by TechCrunch, cracked the top three on the US App Store within 48 hours of its iOS launch. That's real traction, not just a press release number.
Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity's CEO, hasn't been shy about his ambitions. In August he made an unsolicited $34.5 billion all cash offer for Google's Chrome browser, a bid Alphabet never seriously entertained but one that put his name in headlines well outside the usual AI search conversation. A $30 billion valuation from Nvidia would give him something Chrome couldn't: a much bigger war chest to keep building Comet into a real rival to Google search.
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Nvidia already has skin in this game. The chipmaker backed an earlier Perplexity round, and a fresh investment would deepen a relationship that stretches back to when Perplexity was a much smaller challenger to Google. Frankly, that's the point. Nvidia isn't chasing returns the way a normal venture fund does. It's buying relationships with the companies most likely to keep buying its hardware for the next decade.
Vendor financing, by another name #
Nvidia has committed more than $40 billion to AI equity deals in 2026 alone, according to CNBC. The biggest slice, $30 billion, went to OpenAI. Another $10 billion went to Anthropic. Nvidia also agreed to put up to $2 billion into xAI's $20 billion funding round, a deal structured so xAI could turn around and buy more Nvidia gear. When Elon Musk's SpaceX absorbed xAI, Nvidia's original $10 billion xAI stake converted into a SpaceX position now worth close to $21 billion.
Every one of those deals follows roughly the same shape: Nvidia writes the cheque, the startup buys more chips, and Nvidia's own revenue numbers look better for it. Critics have started calling this vendor financing. It's not hard to see why. A Perplexity investment would fit the pattern exactly: money flows to a company racing to build AI powered search and browsing, most of which runs on Nvidia silicon.
Google's Gemini now sits directly inside Search. OpenAI has ChatGPT search and its own browsing ambitions with Atlas. Perplexity, despite its growth, still handles a fraction of the queries either giant processes in a day. A $30 billion valuation doesn't change that math overnight. It does buy Perplexity runway, credibility with enterprise customers, and a backer with every incentive to keep its compute costs manageable.
Don't expect a press release this week. Deals like this tend to sit in the talks stage for weeks before either side confirms anything, and both companies have reason to stay quiet until terms are locked. What's already clear is the shape of the pattern. Nvidia is no longer just the arms dealer of the AI boom. It's becoming one of the biggest shareholders in the companies fighting over who gets to reinvent search.
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