Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered search startup Perplexity AI is reportedly seeking a candidate to help expand its operations in India. The role, announced by co-founder and CEO Aravind Srinivas on LinkedIn, involves working in a startup environment and engaging with strategic partners and institutions across the country.
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Perplexity AI's Expansion in India
India is a significant market for Perplexity AI, which already boasts over a million users in the region out of its 10 million global active user base. According to the report, Srinivas noted that awareness of generative AI tools like ChatGPT is high in India, making the country a prime destination for scaling operations.
Backing by Top Investors
Founded in August 2022 by Srinivas and three co-founders - Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski - Perplexity AI launched its answer engine in December 2022. Backed by prominent investors such as Nvidia, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), and Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke, the company recently raised USD 500 million, tripling its valuation to USD 9 billion, TelecomTalk earlier reported.
"We want that number to expand to like 10-100X more because the Indian population is so big," Srinivas said in an interview with Moneycontrol.
Srinivas further noted that awareness of Generative AI among the Indian public is quite strong. "A lot of people are aware of ChatGPT and large language models...They are already using these technologies in creative ways."
"So, I think we are going to see a lot more faster movement in the AI revolution in India compared to the previous web and mobile revolution, where we were a little behind the rest of the world," Srinivas reportedly added.
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Snowflake CEO's Take on Perplexity
According to the report, AI data cloud firm Snowflake's Chief Executive Officer, Sridhar Ramaswamy, recently remarked that Perplexity’s Application Programming Interface (API)-driven approach allowed it to innovate quickly and build a successful product.
This is particularly significant because Ramaswamy's own company, Neeva, a competitor to Perplexity AI, tried to build a search engine from the scratch but ultimately found it unsustainable, the report noted.
"At Neeva, we spent three years creating a search engine from scratch, where we did the crawl, we did the indexing, we did a lot of heavy work. Perplexity came quite a bit later, and they simply relied on APIs and produced a great product. That really was what drove the positive momentum for the company. All startups have limited shelf lives in terms of how much you can keep going. My team in the last year sort of was tired of the uncertainty of being a startup and the relentless number of fundraising rounds that you must do. Perplexity created a great product, and they've been very quick to innovate. I give Aravind (Aravind Srinivas, founder)—also an IIT-Madras graduate, a lot of credit. What they have done is truly remarkable," the report quoted Ramaswamy as saying.
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Prime Minister's Vision for AI in India
On December 28, 2024, Perplexity AI's CEO Aravind Srinivas met Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Responding to a post by Srinivas on X (formerly Twitter), PM Modi said, "Was great to meet you and discuss AI, its uses and its evolution. Good to see you doing great work with @perplexity_ai."
In addition to Srinivas, PM Modi recently interacted with Microsoft CEO and Chairman Satya Nadella and Indian entrepreneur Vishal Sikka. Modi emphasised, "India is committed to taking the lead in AI, with a focus on innovation and creating opportunities for the youth."
