26
Dec
Perplexity AI Inc., the creator of an artificial intelligence search engine and a competitor to OpenAI, today revealed it has closed on a hefty $500 million funding round that brings its value to a cool $9 billion. The round was announced by Bloomberg, and came shortly after Perplexity confirmed it had closed on its second-ever acquisition, buying a company called Carbon, officially known as JDCT Inc., for an undisclosed price. Institutional Venture Partners is said to have led Perplexity’s latest funding round, which closed earlier this month. No other participants were mentioned in Bloomberg’s report. The funding makes Perplexity one…