Still, this offer for Chrome is far more than Perplexity has raised from investors and more than the startup’s current valuation. Perplexity has raised about $1.5 billion to date, Pitchbook estimates, including an extension round of $100 million raised last month that valued it at $18 billion, Bloomberg reported.

The AI search startup looks less like an acquirer and more like a company to be acquired, but its CEO understands that optics matter.

Perplexity made an unsolicited $34.5 billion bid for Google's web browser and claims it has the backing to pull it off.