Perplexity Wants Chrome
Perplexity.AI (pvt), whose valuation currently sits around $18 billion, has made an unsolicited bid for Google’s (GOOG) Chrome browser of $34.5 billion (all cash), under the concept that Google might be forced to divest Chrome under ongoing anti-trust proceedings with the government. The company claims to have significant financial backing for the bid from a number of investment funds to put the process in motion should it be accepted, but also considers the bid a long shot as Google has not indicated that it is willing to sell Chrome despite a 2024 ruling in the US District Court of the District of Columbia that declared that Google (Alphabet) has maintained an illegal monopoly over online search, keeping others from developing competitive products..
Perplexity has indicated (no formal release yet) that it will maintain the Chrome engine (Chromium) as open-source and has pledged $3b to maintaining and develop the Chromium engine over the next two years also pledging not to change user search engine defaults should the deal go through. In reality, if Google showed any interest in an offer, Perplexity would face real competition, not at the browser level, but at the bid level, as OpenAI (pvt) would likely counter with a higher bid considering its valuation is currently somewhere between $300 billion (last round) and $500b (potential employee share secondary) should the Perplexity bid spark any interest from Google.
We expect the bid is more to prove the point that Open AI is not the only rodeo in town and others can call up the necessary capital to become big fish in the AI ecosystem, and to make sure the Judge in the court case knows that there will be bids should it become necessary to pull apart Google search. It also gets the Perplexity name into the headlines as sort of an $18 billion dollar “Little Engine that Could”.
Perplexity has indicated (no formal release yet) that it will maintain the Chrome engine (Chromium) as open-source and has pledged $3b to maintaining and develop the Chromium engine over the next two years also pledging not to change user search engine defaults should the deal go through. In reality, if Google showed any interest in an offer, Perplexity would face real competition, not at the browser level, but at the bid level, as OpenAI (pvt) would likely counter with a higher bid considering its valuation is currently somewhere between $300 billion (last round) and $500b (potential employee share secondary) should the Perplexity bid spark any interest from Google.
We expect the bid is more to prove the point that Open AI is not the only rodeo in town and others can call up the necessary capital to become big fish in the AI ecosystem, and to make sure the Judge in the court case knows that there will be bids should it become necessary to pull apart Google search. It also gets the Perplexity name into the headlines as sort of an $18 billion dollar “Little Engine that Could”.
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