InvestNot yet confirmed elsewhere1 publisher2 min readPublished
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
- constraint Because 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.
- exposure Nvidia'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.
- precedent With 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.
Price per dollar of revenue is falling at Perplexity, not rising. The $20 billion mark it took last September, set against the sub-$250 million annualized revenue it was running at the start of the year, implies something above 80 times [3][4][18]. The $30 billion-plus now under discussion, against a run rate above $750 million, is roughly 40 times [16][4][14]. The two pairs are not measured on the same day, so read the halving as directional. It is still the one number in this story that argues for restraint rather than against it.
The restraint stops at the plumbing. Nvidia's stakes in CoreWeave and Nebius are at least traceable: those companies buy GPUs, so cash going in one door can be set against orders coming out the other [2]. Perplexity buys no chips. It committed $750 million to run workloads on Microsoft Azure earlier this year, said through a spokesperson that AWS would remain its preferred cloud provider, and struck the Azure deal while fighting Amazon in court over shopping features in its AI tools [9][10][11]. A dollar Nvidia invests in Perplexity reaches Nvidia's revenue line only after a hyperscaler decides to spend it on hardware. Worth noting separately: that Azure commitment on its own is roughly equal to Perplexity's entire current annualized revenue [15].
Jensen Huang has defended Nvidia's financing program on the merits of the asset, calling chips "productive, they're long-lived, they're fungible, they're flexible" [7]. The company also guarantees up to 25% of its chips' residual value if resale falls short [8]. Both can be true at once, but the guarantee is the more informative of the two, because it is a price set by the party with the best view of the resale market.
The Bank for International Settlements put circular financing among the three greatest risks to global financial stability in its 2026 annual report [6], and the Bank of England has said the speed of AI investment has no precedent in history, according to Cryptopolitan's earlier reporting [1]. Neither institution named this deal; both described its shape. And for now it is one report: The Information sourced the talks to people familiar with them, Nvidia and Perplexity declined to comment or did not respond, and Nvidia's 2.16% slip to $210.09 in Monday afternoon trading says nothing either way [16][5][12]. Aravind Srinivas has said Perplexity intends to list in 2028 regardless of how OpenAI and Anthropic fare [13]. That is three more years in which the company's price is set privately, potentially by an investor that books revenue from the spending the price is meant to justify.
What to watch
- Whether Nvidia actually joins the round, and the size of the cheque if it does.
- Whether the reported Mercor round closes near $20 billion with Nvidia in it.
- Any disclosure of how much of Nvidia's residual-value guarantee is outstanding, and where Perplexity's next compute commitment is signed.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence28
- Adoption54
- Hype gap+26
- Incentives66
- Confidence36
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
The Bank of England has warned that the speed of AI investment is unprecedented in history, as Cryptopolitan has previously reported.
ReportedSupportedSource: Bank of England, via Cryptopolitan2 sources— create a free account to open themView cited source - [2]
Nvidia has invested in companies that are also its customers or suppliers, including cloud providers CoreWeave and Nebius and AI data firm Mercor, which is reported to be in talks with Nvidia at a valuation of $20 billion.
- [3]
Perplexity was valued at $20 billion in a round last September.
- [4]
Perplexity's annualized revenue has grown to over $750 million from less than $250 million at the beginning of the year, roughly tripling in about eight months.
- [5]
Both Nvidia and Perplexity declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.
- [6]
In its 2026 Annual Report, the Bank for International Settlements listed circular financing as one of the three greatest risks to global financial stability.
- [7]
Of the financing program, CEO Jensen Huang said chips are "productive, they're long-lived, they're fungible, they're flexible".
- [8]
Nvidia guarantees up to 25% of its chips' residual value if resale falls short at the end of a term.
- [9]
Earlier this year Perplexity agreed to run workloads on Microsoft's Azure for $750 million.
- [10]
A Perplexity spokesperson said at the time that Amazon Web Services would continue to be the company's preferred cloud provider.
- [11]
Perplexity signed the Azure deal while fighting Amazon in court over shopping features in its AI tools.
- [12]
Nvidia shares fell 2.16% to $210.09 in Monday afternoon trading, down from Friday's $214.72 close.
- [13]
CEO Aravind Srinivas said in a June interview that Perplexity plans to pursue an IPO in 2028, regardless of how the planned listings of OpenAI and Anthropic perform.
- [14]
A valuation above $30 billion against annualized revenue above $750 million is a multiple of roughly 40 times revenue.
- [15]
Perplexity's $750 million Azure commitment is approximately equal to its entire current annualized revenue of just over $750 million.
- [16]
Nvidia has started discussions to invest in Perplexity's next funding round at a valuation of over $30 billion, according to a report from The Information; the talks surfaced on Sunday and were sourced to people familiar with the discussions.
ReportedInsufficientSource: The Information, via Cryptopolitan3 sources— create a free account to open themView cited source - [17]
A round above $30 billion would raise Perplexity's valuation by more than 50% in about a year.
- [18]
The September $20 billion mark against start-of-year revenue below $250 million implies more than 80 times revenue, versus roughly 40 times for the round now discussed, so the implied multiple has approximately halved; the two pairs are not measured at the same date.
Sources
1 independent publisher whose own reporting we read for this story.
- cryptopolitan.comNvidia's Perplexity talks add another customer to its circular financing problem
1 article · August 24, 2026
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