Soft Bank reportedly investing in the AI Search startup perplexity at a $3 billion valuation.

A Deirdre Bosis digging into that for Tech Check today.

D you told us last week, Soft Bank was going to start getting more active.

Masioshi Sun is on the hunt, so it wouldn't come as a surprise.

And really this is another data point in the red hot funding landscape for Gen AI companies.

You've got struggling ones like Stability AI. They're finding rescue

lines and then Darlings like perplexity raising money at ever higher

valuations. Both of them have strong user bases that investors see is

compelling all while open AI continues to prove that Scrappy startups

can partner and increasingly compete with mega caps.

Now a source familiar tells me that Soft Bank is looking to participate in Proplexity's latest round which will value the

startup at $3 billion up from just a billion dollars a few months ago.

Bloomberg first reported the details.

The startup though, it's less than two years old and it's already built a strong and loyal

following among tech and business leaders. More recently though, it's faced scrutiny over a product that

summarizes news stories and it's been accused of scraping content from the web.

Another buzzy Gen AI startup, Stability AI, which has struggled with executive turnover and

mounting costs, was earlier this week able to find a lifeline from a group of investors including

ex-Face Sean Parker and Co2 Management that's a crossover fund that like

South Bank many traditional VC investors consider to be Silicon Valley outsiders that

come in at later stages to inflate valuations. Now in venture it's always the

promise of one big payoff that will make up for all the other bets. Now open AI is really the North Star for the opportunity and generative AI.

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