Perplexity operates as a leading AI-powered search engine research tool. It combines a simple chat window with carefully curated results that come complete with citations. This design has enabled the platform to carve out a niche in the very competitive multi-billion-dollar AI market. These characteristics have also made investors hungry to gain access to Perplexity shares. Currently, the company is privately owned, meaning that the only way to get shares is via pre-IPO strategies. Here’s how to navigate the pre-IPO secondary market and acquire Perplexity shares before the company goes public.
What is Perplexity?
Perplexity’s headquarters are located in San Francisco. It was founded by four computer engineers named Aravind Srinivas, Johnny Ho, Andy Konwinski, and Denis Yarats. Notably, Aravind Srinivas held positions at two AI competitors, OpenAI and Alphabet Inc. His experience, combined with the team’s desire to create a more accurate and easy-to-use AI search queue, has led to Perplexity’s rise.
Unlike the Chat-GPT copycats, Perplexity introduces a host of features designed to make it more accurate and easier to use than competitors. For example, the company integrates large language models to process queries from around the globe. This strategy enables anyone to utilize them to further their research without raising their costs.
Perplexity’s user-centric approach has helped it to stand out. The platform is ad-free and provides users with quick and concise answers. The answers are more accurate than competitors’ responses because the firm utilizes a combination of premier sourcing, enhanced AI summarization, clear citations, human feedback, and a proprietary trust scoring system. This approach eliminates spam and low-quality results.
Adding to its growth potential, Perplexity recently unveiled its Enterprise Pro software. This sophisticated conversational search assistant features upgraded privacy. Enterprise users also gain access to added security, management options, and a single sign-in window that helps to streamline operations. Notaly, all of these factors continue to drive demand for Perplexity shares globally.
Historical Funding Rounds
Summary of Perplexity Funding:
- Total Funding: Perplexity secured $915M across 7 funding rounds
- Largest Round: Perplexity’s largest funding round was a Series C that secured $500M in Dec 2024.
- Investors: A total of 16 institutional and 15 investor backers for Perplexity
- Latest Round: The latest funding round was a Series C round held on December 18, 2024, which raised $500M from SoftBank, NVIDIA, and Jeff Bezos
Funding Rounds Breakdown:
- 4 Late-Stage rounds
- 3 Early-Stage rounds
Key Investors:
Perplexity has secured support from 32 investors, including SoftBank, NVIDIA, Wayra, SoftBank Vision Fund, IVP, New Enterprise Associates, Laude Capital, Databricks, Bessemer Venture Partners, Kindred Ventures, Factorial Funds, and more.
Funding Data Sourced from Tracxn
Why Invest in Perplexity?
There are several reasons why someone would want to invest in Perplexity. For one, it’s pioneering the AI chatbot sector. The AI market is one of the fastest-growing tech sectors. Analysts predict this growth could exceed $1T in market value by 2030. As a leading context-aware search engine, Perplexity holds a dominant position in the fast-growing AI market.
Perplexity Provides Quality Data
Perplexity developers took care to ensure their creation provided more accurate and concise answers to questions than the competition. They began the process by building on Microsoft Azure. From there, the team decided to utilize Bing to research sources. When credible sources are located, they are rated and added to the approved content provider list.
Source – Perplexity
This approach is ideal because it offers users the ability to prioritize quality data provided from a smaller, carefully curated pool of reputable sources. Notably, the system continually builds and cross-references sources to ensure that only options that rank high on the trust scale are cited.
This approach makes it much easier to avoid hallucinations. Hallucinations are a term that refers to AI providing false responses and information. Competitors like Chat-GPT suffer from hallucinations, which have left many enterprise-level clientele seeking more accurate options like Perplexity.
The Interactions are More Natural
The ability to communicate your request to Perplexity in a conversational tone is a major plus. It allows anyone to research any topic without previous experience. Additionally, the platform supports the majority of languages and allows users to go as deep into the research as they desire. The team integrated the GPT-3.5 large language model by OpenAI to achieve this goal.
Users Get Faster Results
When you want answers to your questions, waiting may not be an option. Perplexity offers fast response times. The protocol can analyze and summarize information from across the network. The data is then compiled and provided in a concise and cited manner, enabling you to kick up the pace of your operations.
The Results Include Citations
Perplexity’s developers want to ensure that the data provided is accurate. As such, they cite all results, enabling users to deepen their research on any subject simply by clicking the source link. This approach makes sense as many competitors provide results but don’t express their origins.
Data Privacy is Crucial
Those worried about AI gathering excessive data on their actions can rest assured that Perplexity doesn’t utilize enterprise customers’ data to train AI models. Additionally, the company deletes all search queries after a 7-day holding time.
Perplexity has a Competitive Edge
When you examine the AI market, you see that Perplexity continues to gain market share against competitors like Google and OpenAI. The firm’s unique business model and AI features have helped it to expand its user base and remain competitive against providers that have much more funding.
Perplexity is Ad-Free
A small but really important benefit of Perplexity is that it offers its services without ads. The average internet user is tired of receiving ads disguised as search results or fair comparisons. Perplexity does away with these questionable business practices. It delivers accurate and timely responses without attempting to skew your perspective.
How to Buy Perplexity Pre-IPO Shares
Perplexity remains a privately held company, meaning that you will need to utilize a specialized approach to get access to shares. Here is what you need to consider.
1. Pre-IPO Secondary Marketplace
Secondary markets are purpose-built exchanges that connect pre-IPO shareholders with potential investors. These marketplaces can offer these assets because they work closely with employees, early-stage investors, and venture capitalists, who are crucial to the company’s pre-IPO growth.
Investing in pre-IPO shares of Perplexity could offer strong returns if the company’s valuation increases following its IPO. It’s common for company valuations to increase following an IPO. As such, it makes sense to add pre-IPO shares to your portfolio before the firm announces plans to go public.
Secondary marketplaces have many requirements. Here are some concerns you should be made aware of:
Eligibility: This approach requires you to be an accredited investor, meaning you will have to show at least $1M in liquid assets to qualify for access.
2. Private Equity Firms
Private equity firms gain access to pre-IPO shares during investment rounds. They then offer these shares to high-net-worth accredited investors with a commission. Notably, private equity firms are known to have extra stipulations, including blocking the sale of shares for years in some cases.
3. Employee Equity Sales
Many consider employee equity sales as the best way to acquire pre-IPO shares in Perplexity. This method of acquiring pre-IPO shares requires you to connect with former employees. It’s common for companies to issue shares as part of an incentive package. Notably, this profit-sharing method has become more popular, leading to more pre-IPO share opportunities for investors.
Private Transactions: There are a lot of hoops you will need to jump through to complete a private pre-IPO transaction, including creating specific legal agreements, conducting valuations, and setting in place any limitations on the transfer of the asset.
Brokerage: Brokers will take a lot of the confusion out of the pre-IPO process. These professionals can guide you through each step, ensuring full compliance and avoiding common errors untrained professionals make.
There are several risks that you should consider before jumping into the pre-IPO shares investment arena. Here are the top concerns:
Liquidity Risk
If you are looking for an asset that you can sell right away, pre-IPO shares are not the best option. These investments can include sales and transfer clauses that prevent the transfer of the asset until certain criteria, such as the IPO’s completion, are met. It’s even common for pre-IPO shares to require you to wait years before gaining the ability to sell your assets.
Finding a Broker
If you meet the requirements and are comfortable with the risks, several platforms offer access to pre-IPO opportunities:
Forge Global: One of the largest private stock marketplaces, offering shares in late-stage startups like SpaceX, Stripe, and Databricks. Minimums typically start around $100,000.
EquityZen: A popular platform allowing accredited investors to buy into private companies with minimums as low as $5,000. Past offerings include companies like Discord and UiPath.
Rainmaker Securities: A full-service broker that helps source and negotiate private share sales, including opportunities in companies like OpenAI, Stripe, and Palantir.
Hiive: A newer platform with live bid/ask pricing for hundreds of private companies. Transparent and low-fee, with minimums starting around $25,000.
MicroVentures: Offers pooled access to late-stage companies through special purpose vehicles (SPVs), including past investments in SpaceX and Instacart.
EquityBee: Allows investors to fund employee stock option exercises at startups, often at discounted valuations, with minimums around $10,000.
Augment: A digital-first marketplace showing real-time pricing for pre-IPO shares, targeting tech-savvy investors and offering lower transaction fees.
StartEngine Private: Launched in late 2023, this platform offers accredited investors access to Regulation D offerings in later-stage, venture-backed companies. In its first nine months, it generated $16.5 million in revenue, with average investments around $32,000
Important: Always perform thorough due diligence and consult a financial advisor before investing in private company shares.
Valuation of Perplexity and Future IPO
Perplexity is one of the fastest-growing AI-assisted search protocols globally. The company secured a $9B valuation as of Dec 19, 2024. This valuation qualifies Perplexity as a Unicorn. It also demonstrates the stark demand for AI-powered research tools.
While no IPO date has been shared by the company, many analysts believe Perplexity is approaching the time when an IPO would make sense. The continued demand for AI services, improved hardware to support these protocols, and a better understanding by the average user are all factors that continue to drive investor interests.
If Perplexity did decide to host an IPO in the coming months, the event could see strong support from the public and private sectors. The company has proven to the market that it can provide reliable ad free services that are scalable up to enterprise level clientele. As such, anyone holding Pre-IPO shares could secure dominant positioning in the market.
Investing in Perplexity Pre-IPO shares: Conclusion
Investing in Pre-IPO Perplexity shares opens the door for some exciting opportunities. The company is a leading force in one of the most exciting tech sectors. Additionally, it has strong strategic partnerships and utilizes already proven technology to accomplish its goals. As such, there’s strong long-term upside potential.
It’s recommended that you consult a financial expert before investing in pre-IPO shares. Remember, there’s no guarantee that the share value will increase before or after an IPO. Consequently, speaking with a professional can help you to stay within your risk limits and prevent unintended stress and losses. For those who can qualify for Perplexity pre-IPO shares and find that the stock meets their quality control measures, there’s a lot of upside potential.
Learn about Other Pre-IPO Opportunities Now
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, or investment advice. Pre-IPO shares are typically available only to accredited investors and carry significant risk. Always perform thorough due diligence and consult a financial advisor or legal expert before making investment decisions.