The world’s most valuable chipmaker is weighing an equity stake in the startup trying to unseat Google search, at a price that would lift Perplexity’s valuation by half in under a year.

On Aug 23, 2026, The Information reported that Nvidia is discussing investing in Perplexity as part of an equity round that would value the company at more than $30 billion. Reuters relayed the report and said it could not independently verify it. No investment amount has been confirmed, no co-investors have been named, and neither company has announced a completed transaction. Some deal databases have already logged this as a closed corporate round led by NVentures, Nvidia’s venture arm; that characterisation runs ahead of the reporting, which describes talks and does not name NVentures as a lead. Perplexity offered no comment, and the sources cited were unnamed.

What the company does

Perplexity was founded in August 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho and Andy Konwinski. Its core product is an answer engine: rather than returning a page of links, it synthesises a response from live web results and cites the sources underneath. It sells free and paid tiers.

The company has since pushed beyond search into agents. Reporting on the talks points to Perplexity Computer, a cloud-based agent aimed at automating routine professional work on a machine, as the product now driving growth.

The numbers behind the round

Perplexity last priced round closed in September 2025, raising $200 million at a $20 billion valuation. A round above $30 billion would mark a step-up of roughly 50 percent, and would follow a pattern of frequent raises: the company has gone back to the market every few months and has taken in more than $1.5 billion in total.

The operating figure behind the mark is revenue. Perplexity is running at roughly $750 million in annualised revenue, up from under $250 million at the start of 2026 and about $450 million in March. Even so, a $30 billion valuation implies a multiple of roughly 40 times run-rate revenue.

Why the timing matters

Nvidia has been putting equity into companies that build on the infrastructure it sells — CoreWeave, Nebius, Fireworks, Safe Superintelligence and Firmus among them. Analysts describe the effect as a reinforcing cycle: Nvidia supplies the hardware, then holds a stake in the growth that hardware enables.

Perplexity fits neatly. It said last month it would deploy Nvidia Vera CPUs for agent workloads after finding they outperformed conventional server processors on core tasks, and Nvidia has separately been reported to have considered a licensing arrangement with the company. Chief executive Jensen Huang has called Perplexity his preferred chatbot.

The caveat is the one the feed entries have dropped. Talks at a headline number are not a round. Until an amount, a lead and a close are confirmed, $30 billion is a figure under discussion, not a price anyone has paid.

Source

Reuters — "Nvidia discusses Perplexity investment at $30 billion-plus valuation, The Information reports"