Perplexity launches $50 million seed and former seed investment fund

According to CNBC, AI search engine development company Perplexity is raising a $50 million seed and former seed investment fund. Most of the capital of this fund comes from limited partners, and Perplexity also uses some of the funds obtained from previous financing as the cornerstone of this fund. In December, Perplexity successfully raised $500 million, and the company's valuation reached $9 billion.

The investment fund of Perplexity is run by two general partners, Kelly Graziadei and Joanna Lee Shevelenko. The two co-founded early-stage investment company F7Ventures in 2018. According to PitchBook data, F7Ventures has invested in startups such as Midi, a company in women's health. It is unclear whether Graziadei and Shevelenko will continue to manage F7 or turn all their energy to Perplexity’s venture capital fund.

Unlike Perplexity's approach, OpenAI also manages an investment fund called OpenAI Startup Fund, but OpenAI claims it does not use its own capital to invest.