Latest news with #AravindSrinivas'
Mint
5 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Aravind Srinivas' net worth: How much does Perplexity CEO earn as it makes bid to buy Chrome browser for $34.5 billion?
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, who made an offer to acquire TikTok US operations in January this year, has once again come up with a new bid. This time, his AI-start up made a $34.5 billion unsolicited all-cash offer for Alphabet's Chrome browser on 12 August. The three-year-old company has secured approximately $1 billion in funding to date from investors such as Nvidia and Japan's SoftBank, and was most recently valued at $14 billion. Let's take a look at Aravind Srinivas' net worth amid IIT graduate's Perplexity proposing double the value of the startup, (reportedly $18 billion in a latest funding round) in a letter to intent to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Perplexity AI's CEO and co-founder Aravind Srinivas has achieved an impressive milestone, reaching a valuation of $1 billion (approximately ₹ 8,300 crore) in just two years, according to ET Now. However, this represents only a fraction of his growing business empire. His company is estimated to bring in nearly $50 million in annual revenue, and Aravind has also established himself as a notable investor, holding stakes in companies such as Chennai Meenakshi Multispeciality Hospital Ltd. and eMudhra Ltd, reports said. The 31-year-old's personal wealth is reportedly estimated at around ₹ 223.8 crore. Driven by a strong interest in machine learning, Srnivas initially faced setbacks when he couldn't transition to a computer science program to formally pursue his ambitions. Despite this, his determination led him to teach himself Python and stand out in Kaggle competitions. His dedication eventually earned him an internship with renowned deep learning expert Yoshua Bengio, which later opened the door to a PhD in Artificial Intelligence at UC Berkeley. Perplexity already offers an AI-powered browser called Comet, capable of performing certain tasks on behalf of users. Acquiring Chrome would give the company access to the browser's massive user base of over three billion, significantly boosting its ability to compete with larger players like OpenAI, which is also developing its own AI browser. According to a term sheet seen by Reuters, Perplexity's offer includes a commitment to keep Chromium, the open-source code behind Chrome, invest $3 billion over the next two years, and retain Chrome's existing default search engine settings. The company emphasised that the proposal, which involves no equity component, is designed to protect user choice and reduce potential concerns around future market competition. However, analysts believe Google would probably not sell Chrome and could face a long legal battle to avoid that result, considering its important to the company's AI push as it introduces major updates like AI-generated search summaries, called Overviews.
India Today
6 days ago
- Business
- India Today
Google Chrome for sale? Aravind Srinivas' Perplexity offers $34.5 billion to buy it: Full story in 5 points
Aravind Srinivas' Perplexity AI has stunned the tech world with a $34.5 billion all-cash offer to buy Google Chrome, even though the browser is not officially on the market. The bid, far larger than Perplexity's own $14 billion valuation, comes as the startup aims to secure a stronger foothold in the AI search race. Perplexity is known for making bold moves. Earlier this year, it offered to merge with TikTok's US business to address concerns over Chinese ownership. Now, its sights are set on Chrome's estimated three billion users, which would give Perplexity the scale to rival AI competitors like offer comes as Google faces mounting legal pressure in the United States over its dominance in online search, raising the possibility, however slim, that Chrome could be forced into new ownership. Here's the situation broken down into five key points.A bold bid from a young AI challengerPerplexity, only three years old, has already built a reputation for audacious moves. Earlier this year, the company proposed merging with TikTok's US operations to address political concerns about the app's Chinese ownership. Now, it has set its sights on Chrome, a browser used by an estimated three billion people worldwide. If successful, the acquisition would give Perplexity instant scale in its battle against AI rivals such as OpenAI. Chrome is not just a web browser, it is a gateway to enormous amounts of search traffic and user data, both of which are increasingly critical in shaping AI under antitrust fireGoogle's legal troubles form the backdrop to this offer. A US court recently ruled that the company held an unlawful monopoly in online search. The US Department of Justice has suggested that selling Chrome could be one possible remedy to restore however, plans to appeal the decision and insists that the market is already competitive. The company has made no indication that Chrome is for sale. Experts note that any forced sale would likely face a long legal process, potentially taking years and reaching the US Supreme promises, but few detailsPerplexity has not revealed exactly how it would finance the $34.5 billion purchase. The company says several unnamed investment funds have offered to cover the full date, Perplexity has raised about $1 billion from investors including Nvidia and Japan's SoftBank. According to a term sheet seen by Reuters, the company has pledged to keep Chrome's underlying open-source code, Chromium, freely available; invest $3 billion over two years; and make no changes to Chrome's default search engine. Perplexity's pitch frames the deal as a way to preserve user choice while boosting interest adds to the intriguePerplexity is not alone in its interest. Earlier this year, court testimony revealed that OpenAI also explored the idea of buying Chrome. Along with it, Yahoo also showed interest in buying Chrome. In 2023, OpenAI approached Google to gain access to its search API for use in ChatGPT, but Google declined, citing competitive then, OpenAI has relied on Microsoft's Bing to power its chatbot's search capabilities. The company admits it is still years away from building a search engine capable of handling the majority of user queries. Like Perplexity, owning Chrome would give OpenAI a direct route to billions of internet road ahead: unlikely but high stakesIndustry analysts remain sceptical that Google would willingly part with Chrome, given its role as a cornerstone of the company's AI and search strategies. Chrome feeds valuable data into Google's AI models and supports new features like AI-generated 'Overviews' in search Justice Department, however, argues that Google's control over search infrastructure could give it an unfair edge in the AI race. For now, Chrome remains firmly in Google's hands, but as the antitrust trial nears a decision on remedies, tech giants and investors alike are watching closely. Whether the sale happens or not, Chrome's future will be a central storyline in Big Tech's AI competition.- Ends advertisement
Hindustan Times
02-05-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Battles aside, Perplexity is rapidly writing an ambitious chapter
Perplexity is battling Google, to find a way to have its Perplexity AI Assistant preloaded on Android phones. Perplexity has also thrown its hat in the ring to take ownership of the Chrome web browser, if Google is forced to cut it loose. In essence, there is a lot going on at Perplexity, Aravind Srinivas' artificial intelligence (AI) company. The last six months, provide a snapshot of an intense period, one the company seems intent to make as the foundation for bigger, better things. It won't be easy through, because for some functionality and indeed subscription revenue (users tend to choose one, at the most two), their AI landscape competition includes Google, OpenAI, and a re-energised Meta. In fact, just this week, Perplexity has released a new AI chatbot for use WhatsApp, Srinivas got into a war of words with privacy focused tech company Proton in a series of posts on X regarding an opinion about data collection, and of course, talking about tracking user data to serve ads as a core tenet to the company's upcoming web browser supposedly called Comet. This isn't all. The browser aspirations prove key, because Perplexity's vision isn't to compete with the web browsers we already know and use (the likes of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Brave or Vivaldi). There's an agentic AI dream to be achieved. Basically, web browsing that integrates AI agents that can autonomously perform tasks, such as booking travel or interacting with other web apps or services, from within the browser. Unlike traditional browsers (no matter how much AI integration they may claim, this generation's browsers are traditional in the best sense), Comet will act as a contained operating system that can do more than the sum of extensions and add-ons that today's browsers allow. The plan is to release this sometime in May. Also Read: Perplexity launching an AI browser like Google Chrome with an aim to 'browse' you It may well be a crucial early mover advantage for Perplexity, since we may see more on that front. OpenAI is believed to be working on a web browser, and if Google does have to sell Chrome depending on how the US Department of Justice antitrust scrutiny pan out, the buyer will inevitably focus on AI (Perplexity themselves have shown an interest, as has OpenAI). Personalisation and memory would be key, as Perplexity explores building user profiles based on browsing habits, purchases, and preferences to deliver tailored experiences. But this is where the question of data collection, privacy and choice comes into play — something the folks at Proton had raised on X. There is no way around it. Perplexity will gave to find a balance of choice, and address inevitable user concerns. They've mostly been transparent in the AI journey thus far, why change track now? For Perplexity, they've found inroads into the Android phone space this week (beyond the app they already have). For Srinivas, it was a case of striking while the iron is hot — Google is already on the backfoot with these antitrust investigations, and that gives phone makers more confidence to get into agreements that would compete with Gemini's priority integration within Android. The result, a global partnership with Motorola that'll see the Perplexity app being preloaded on their phones (and added to some existing phones with a software update, one would assume). 'Every smartphone powers on with pre-selected apps you didn't choose: your browser, your search engine, your voice assistant, and other apps. You don't have a choice. For Google, that's a strategy,' the company had written in a blog post, that minced no words. But that wasn't it. They noted how Google can keep outspending everyone else to stay the default, and the only solution is choice. Also Read: Indian techie reveals he rejected Perplexity AI's offer in 2022, calls it 'worst financial decision ever' Reminds me of a conversation I had with Rohan Verma, then CEO of MapmyIndia, who also fought a long battle to break Google's monopoly in the map apps choice on Android phones. Their Mappls app, found traction once the Competition Commission of India, took action to stop the monopolistic tactics. 'At Perplexity, we don't see ourselves as a competitor to Google. We're building something different. We're trying to give people another choice: search that answers, assistants that work. AI that's intelligent, accurate, and trustworthy. Some consumers will choose both Google and Perplexity. Some will choose one or the other. That's what choice looks like in a healthy ecosystem,' they added. There'll be deeper customisations for Motorola phones — availability on Razr devices' external display when folded shut, access through Moto AI by typing 'Ask Perplexity', and allow users to send emails, set smart reminders, play media, request rides, as well as book restaurant reservations. Perhaps a vision towards what Perplexity can do with Android phones, if more phone makers were to sign up. New Motorola phones—including Razr and Edge 60 devices will bundle 3 months of Perplexity Pro. That's key — with hope these users will be willing to spend $20 a month later for the Pro subscription. The pitch is, also get access to Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet and Sonnet Thinking, OpenAI's GPT 4.1 as well as o4-mini, Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro, Grok 3 Beta and the R1 1776, which Perplexity calls an 'unbiased reasoning model'. At the turn of the year, Perplexity added Assistant, an AI-powered tool integrated into its app — something that's more than capable of performing tasks across multiple apps, such as booking rides or searching for songs, whilst maintaining context across actions. There was also a new Sonar model, which they claim performs better than frontier models such as the GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet. The next 12 months will be a greater challenge for Perplexity, more than anything it has withstood thus far. The reason for that, is an aspiration to carve a space for itself amidst the AI conversation. Nothing tells me their future isn't bright. It certainly will be a bumpy road, which Srinivas and his team seem more than willing to withstand. Vishal Mathur is the technology editor for HT. Tech Tonic is a weekly column that looks at the impact of personal technology on the way we live, and vice-versa. The views expressed are personal.
