Loading today’s stories
Invest1 distinct publisher2 min readUpdated
Nvidia's Perplexity talks move its money one layer further from its own chips
A reported check into a company that rents its compute instead of buying GPUs pushes the circular financing question one step further from anything a filing will show.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- Nvidia has opened talks to join Perplexity's next funding round at a valuation above $30 billion, The Information reported.
- The round would follow the $20 billion mark set last September, a rise of more than 50% in about a year.
- Nvidia already holds positions in customers and suppliers including CoreWeave, Nebius and Mercor.
Compiled by The InvestorSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- constraintBecause Perplexity rents compute rather than buying GPUs, the loop closes inside a hyperscaler's capital budget, where no outside investor can net the vendor's money against the vendor's orders.
- exposureNvidia's equity mark and its order book would then rest on the same AI search demand, so a slowdown reaches both sides of its accounts at once.
- precedentWith Mercor also reported in talks, a strategic cheque from the chip supplier becomes an expected line in AI rounds, and its absence starts to read as a judgement.
Loading topic controls
Loading related stories