Why We Invested in Perplexity: Defining the AI and Agentic Internet
Today, we're excited to announce our participation in Perplexity's Series E round.
We believe Perplexity isn’t just reinventing search — it’s building the AI-native interface to human knowledge. One where agents power our interaction with information.
The Problem: The Internet in the Age of AI
Traditional search engines have served us well for decades, but they're increasingly inadequate for today's information needs. Users are overwhelmed by ads and bias, fragmented content, and endless lists of links that require manual synthesis and verification.
While AI promises to transform how we access information, most AI models fall short in critical areas: attribution, multi-step reasoning, and information accuracy. Users are left with powerful AI that can't be trusted for factual accuracy due to hallucinations, or traditional search that requires too much manual work to synthesize answers.
The Solution: AI-Native Information Access Platform
Perplexity has built the bridge between these worlds—an AI-native platform that integrates advanced large language models with real-time web search and proprietary orchestration to deliver answers and intelligent workflows to users.
What sets Perplexity apart is its comprehensive, multi-layered approach:
Core Multi-Modal Search Engine: Handles text, images, and voice queries with unprecedented accuracy, delivering source-cited answers that solve the attribution problem plaguing other AI systems.
Real-Time Data Integration: Live access to market data, news feeds, and specialized datasets through strategic partnerships such as FactSet, Crunchbase, and Stripe.
Comet Browser: Embeds intelligent automation directly into web workflows, introducing capabilities like voice-command task automation and multi-step workflow execution—making it the first AI-native browser to market.
How Perplexity Fits with Wyld's Investment Thesis
Exceptional Founders: Aravind, Denis, Johnny, Andy, and Dmitry are uniquely suited to build this company. As widely respected AI researchers with experience at OpenAI, DeepMind, Meta FAIR, and Databricks, they have successfully attracted top AI talent from across the industry. The team is even more impressive than the product.
Outstanding Product Experience: The platform gracefully merges conversational AI and real-time web integration, delivering comprehensive and transparent responses. Users love asking Perplexity questions the way they naturally come to mind—intuitive, conversational, and trustworthy.
Strong Competitive Advantage: Perplexity's approach combines real-time retrieval, full transparency with rigorous sourcing, and flexible AI modeling, building an enduring competitive moat. The company has achieved impressive traction with over 30 million monthly active users and growing engagement among subscribers.
Category-Defining Platform: In consumer AI, first movers tend to capture disproportionate market share. Perplexity has established itself as the leading AI-native search engine and is rapidly building upon this advantage with the 1st AI-native browser to market.
Looking Ahead: Infrastructure for the AI-Agent Economy
Perplexity sits at the critical intersection between users and the broader AI stack, positioning it to benefit from advances in foundation models. The future of search isn't about finding links—it's about finding answers and getting tasks done. More broadly, the future of human-to-computer [agent] interaction is about natural conversation with intelligent systems that can access, synthesize, and cite the world's information in real-time and safely take action. We are proud to support Perplexity as it builds the future of knowledge access and agentic experiences—one that is faster, more transparent, and fundamentally more empowering for all.
