In a shift that’s turning heads across Silicon Valley, Perplexity AI has put forward an unsolicited all‑cash offer of $34.5 billion to acquire Google’s ubiquitous Chrome browser, even though the AI venture was only recently valued at roughly $18 billion after a $100 million capital injection.
The proposal, which pledges to inject $3 billion over two years into Chrome and its open‑source foundation Chromium, also promises to keep Chrome’s default search engine intact – while allowing utilizers the flexibility to switch.
Perplexity, founded in 2022 by AI veterans including Aravind Srinivas and Denis Yarats, has rocketed from a sub‑$1 billion valuation in early 2024 to today’s $18 billion thanks to aggressive fundraising and rapid growth. Follow our coverage on Perplexity AI over here.
Behind the scenes, the startup has already raised around $1 billion to date from high-profile investors among them Nvidia and SoftBank, who are believed to be backing this audacious bid.
Still, analysts are calling the offer a “long shot.” Google has not put Chrome on the market, is likely to launch a fierce legal defence, and sees the browser as indispensable to its AI and ecosystem strategy. Even so, the U.S. antitrust case against Google, where a judge is weighing divestiture remedies, may have inspired Perplexity’s bold shift.
The question now is whether this savvy, well-backed upstart can ever wrest control of one of the world’s most valuable software assets from the clutches of Big Tech or at least create the court reconsider if there’s an indepfinishent suitor ready to step in?
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