How To Invest In Perplexity

By Nicholas Grous, Varshika Prasanna

Director of Research, Consumer Internet and Fintech

Nicholas leads the consumer applications vertical of ARK's AI Research team.

Research Analyst, Fintech

Varshika focuses on digital wallets and payment solutions in support of ARK’s Fintech strategy.

Self-Directed Investors have historically had limited access to private companies like Perplexity before they go public. All US investors can download the SoFi or Titan app and, with as little as $500, invest in a portfolio of private and public companies through the ARK Venture Fund.

Large Language Models (LLMs) make it possible to synthesize and cite answers directly from the web, removing a step between query and resolution that previously required users to navigate multiple sources. According to our research, that shift changes the competitive basis of search from link inventory to answer quality, opening a market to new entrants valued at hundreds of billions of dollars in annual advertising revenue. In our view, Perplexity AI is a leading challenger building an AI-native search experience from the ground up. 

Perplexity's strategic architecture operates a light-asset model that routes queries across multiple third-party LLMs, instead of training proprietary foundation models, a capital-intensive endeavor requiring billions in compute infrastructure. The approach allows Perplexity to select the best-performing model for each query type while avoiding the fixed costs that weigh on competitors building vertically integrated AI stacks. The result is a leaner cost structure, faster iteration cycles, and flexibility to adopt new model capabilities as they become available, positioning Perplexity to benefit from the rapid cost declines without bearing the capital burden of model development. The platform processed ~780 million queries in May 2025.¹

Perplexity has raised capital at valuations from $520 million to $14 billion to $20 billion across successive funding rounds, signaling sustained investor conviction,² and strategic partnerships reinforce the platform's reach. PayPal now powers agentic commerce capabilities directly within search results.  Deutsche Telekom selected Perplexity for its AI Phone initiative.³ 

ARK’s research has assessed Perplexity as a first mover in product innovation, and recent launches confirm that trajectory. The company released Comet, a dedicated browser designed to make AI-powered search the default entry point for the web, and introduced Computer, a product that enables agentic workflows through which the AI can take actions on behalf of users across applications. 

Browser distribution through Comet could shift user habits at the operating system level, capturing search traffic before it reaches a traditional engine. Agentic commerce, powered by the PayPal integration, opens a direct transaction layer within the search experience—a monetization model that does not depend on advertising. Enterprise adoption is accelerating, supported by compliance certifications, including SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA that address procurement requirements for regulated industries.⁴ A developer Application Programming Interface (API) with competitive pricing creates a platform layer, enabling third-party applications to build on Perplexity's retrieval and synthesis capabilities. 

Competition is intense, to be sure, the incumbent search providers commanding massive distribution advantages and integrating AI features into existing products. Ongoing copyright litigation and content licensing costs introduce legal and financial uncertainty that could affect Perplexity and the broader AI-search category. ARK monitors those and other dynamics closely but views them as sector-wide challenges instead of unique risks. 

In our view, Perplexity AI is one of the few players with a competitive AI-native search product. Its capital-efficient model architecture enables a rapid product cadence that incumbent search providers cannot match at the same cost basis, making it a strong candidate to capture meaningful share as search transitions from links to answers. As AI inference costs decline and answer-based search reaches broader audiences, the company's expansion into browser distribution, agentic commerce, enterprise services, and developer tools positions it to compound value across the ARK Venture Fund portfolio.

Important Information 

We offer our view of Perplexity because it is part of the total ARK Venture Fund portfolio. To see the most updated portfolio, please visit, here. Holdings subject to change. Not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any specific security. 

BEFORE INVESTING YOU SHOULD CAREFULLY CONSIDER THE FUND'S INVESTMENT OBJECTIVES, RISKS, CHARGES AND EXPENSES. THIS AND OTHER INFORMATION IS IN THE PROSPECTUS, A COPY OF WHICH MAY BE OBTAINED HERE. PLEASE READ THE PROSPECTUS CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU INVEST. 

There is no assurance that the Fund will meet its investment objective. The value of your investment in the Fund, as well as the amount of return you receive on your investment in the Fund, may fluctuate significantly. You may lose part or all of your investment in the Fund or your investment may not perform as well as other similar investments. Therefore, you should consider carefully the risks at the bottom of this page before investing in the Fund. 

ARK Investment Management LLC is the investment adviser to the ARK Venture Fund. 

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