TapTechNews June 27, SoftBank Group's VisionFund2 is investing in the US artificial intelligence startup PerplexityAI at a valuation of 3 billion US dollars. According to Bloomberg citing informed sources, SoftBank will invest 10 to 20 million US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 72.853 million to 145.706 million Chinese yuan) in the AI search engine company Perplexity.
Perplexity aims to compete with Google Search using AI. It is reported that this investment is part of a 250 million US dollars (currently about 1.821 billion Chinese yuan) financing. After the completion of the financing, Perplexity's valuation will triple and become one of the companies with the highest valuation in the industry.
The report believes that this transaction highlights SoftBank's readiness to significantly accelerate the pace of investment in the AI field. SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son had previously described the future vision of AI - including the super artificial intelligence that TapTechNews had previously reported. Masayoshi Son once said at the general meeting of shareholders that the company has done many things, but these are just preparatory works for his dream of realizing super artificial intelligence.
Insiders said the deal has not been finalized yet, and the terms may still change, and anonymity is requested. Representatives of Perplexity and SoftBank both refused to comment on the transaction negotiations.
On June 17, SoftBank announced a strategic cooperation with Perplexity and opened applications for a one-year free trial of PerplexityPro to users of the three major brands of Softbank, Y-Mobile and LINEMO on June 19.