SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — Perplexity AI, the creator of an AI-driven search engine led by Aravind Srinivas, has unveiled the deployment of a $50 million venture fund to support early-stage artificial intelligence companies. The fund will be investing in pre-seed and seed rounds, mostly in the United States.
Most of the capital in this fund is provided by limited partners, though Perplexity is also investing some of the $500 million it raised in December 2024 to back the fund. This large funding round, spearheaded by Institutional Venture Partners, valued the company at $9 billion.
The new venture fund will be led by general partners Kelly Graziadei and Joanna Lee Shevelenko, who founded early-stage venture firm F7 Ventures in 2018. F7 Ventures has invested in companies like women’s health firm Midi. It is not known if Graziadei and Shevelenko will continue to work at F7 or work on Perplexity’s venture fund full-time.
Perplexity’s action is consistent with the tactics of other leading AI industry players. OpenAI, for example, operates an investment fund called the OpenAI Startup Fund. But unlike Perplexity, OpenAI insists its capital is not being used for these investments.
This move highlights the increasing practice of well-established AI firms propagating innovation by investing in nascent startups in the space.
