How to Invest in Perplexity AI in 2026

If you haven't heard, Google has a challenger.

Perplexity is an AI-based search engine company aiming to offer accurate, reliable, and real-time answers to users' queries. And it's exploding in popularity.

As of May 2025, Perplexity was answering 780 million queries per month and growing by about 20% month over month.

Revenue was growing at a similar clip. In August 2025, Perplexity's annual recurring revenue (ARR) crossed $150 million, up 30x since January 2024.

The growth attracted investment from many notable investors — including Accel, Institutional Venture Partners, and Nvidia. In September 2025 Perplexity raised $200 million at a $20 billion valuation, its third round of the year.

Then, in April 2026, Perplexity launched Personal Computer — a desktop AI agent software that interacts directly with your local files, apps, and the web to automate complex, multi-step workflows.

At the same time, Perplexity added a usage-based pricing model under which subscribers receive a set number of credits before paying for additional use.

Following the rollout, estimated ARR jumped 50% to more than $450 million.

Despite its growth, the company has no immediate plans to IPO. More on that below.

Still, there is a way for you to invest in Perplexity — if you qualify.

Can you buy Perplexity AI stock?

Perplexity AI is a private company, which means it doesn't trade on a public stock exchange, and there's no Perplexity AI stock symbol. 

However, its stock does trade on Hiive, an investment platform where shareholders of private companies can sell their shares to accredited investors.

Accreditation requirements

To qualify as an accredited investor, you must meet one of the following criteria:

• Have an annual income of $200,000 individually or $300,000 jointly.
• Have a net worth that exceeds $1,000,000, excluding your main residence.
• Be a qualifying financial professional.

There are more than 3,000 private companies with shares available on Hiive, including OpenAI, Figure AI, and SpaceX.

As of the time of this writing, there are 33 listings of Perplexity AI stock available:

Every listing on Hiive is created by a unique seller. Sellers are typically current or former employees, venture capitalists, or angel investors.

Each seller enters the number of shares they want to sell and sets their asking price. After a listing is created, buyers can either accept the asking price as listed or place bids and negotiate directly with sellers.

Buyers can also add companies to their watchlist and get notifications of any new listings or completed transactions.

To see the order book for Perplexity AI, including all bids, asks, and recent transactions, create an account on Hiive with the button below:

Register for Hiive

Forge is another secondary marketplace where accredited investors can find Perplexity shares. Because pricing and availability vary by platform, it can be worth comparing listings on both Forge and Hiive before purchasing to make sure you're getting the best price.

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Can retail investors buy Perplexity AI stock?

In short, no. Since Perplexity AI is still a private company, retail investors cannot buy its shares. Non-accredited investors will have to wait for the company to IPO before they're able to invest.

However, retail investors can gain exposure via the ARK Venture Fund.

ARK Venture Fund

The ARK Venture Fund is a venture capital fund that invests in both public and private technology companies.

The fund's top 10 holdings include SpaceX, OpenAI, Replit, and Anthropic. It also owns a stake in Perplexity, though it makes up just 0.45% of the fund's holdings (as of April 30, 2026):

Given the size of its stake, buying the ARK Venture Fund will give you very indirect exposure to Perplexity. However, if you're interested in private tech investing, the fund is a way to gain exposure to many of the world's hottest startups.

The fund is available to all investors and has a 2.90% annual management fee. You can learn more about the fund and how to invest in it on the ARK website.

For retail investors to gain direct exposure to Perplexity, however, they'll need to wait for its IPO.

When will Perplexity AI have its IPO?

In March 2025, when asked about his IPO plans, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said the company has all the funding it needs and has “no plans of IPOing before 2028.”

If Perplexity can continue to attract funding from the private markets (which I expect it will), there's no reason for it to become publicly traded in the immediate future.

By keeping a company private, founders are able to retain more control, keep their financials private, and not have to deal with the regulatory complexities of being a public company.

Plus, they might make a lot more money.

Other investment opportunities

Although you may not be able to invest in Perplexity, you can invest in other AI-powered search companies that are publicly traded, such as Google and Microsoft.

Buying either one of these stocks isn't the same as investing in Perplexity, but until its IPO, these are the best available options for retail investors.

Alphabet

Alphabet (GOOGL), the parent company of Google, still dominates search.

According to some estimates, Google currently processes over 400 billion search queries per month. That's more than 500x Perplexity's 780 million per month.

If you're bullish on the future of AI-powered search, it's hard to imagine a world where Google isn't a big winner.

Microsoft

Microsoft (MSFT) runs its own AI-powered search engine — Bing — and has a close partnership with OpenAI.

OpenAI's SearchGPT is an AI-powered search engine similar to Perplexity's, though it's just one of OpenAI's products.

Microsoft's partnership also gives it access to OpenAI's technology, which it has been integrating into many of its core products.

Other options

Additionally, Nvidia (NVDA) and SoftBank (SFTBY) also own stakes in Perplexity, so buying either of these stocks would give you some exposure to Perplexity.

However, both of their investments are extremely small relative to their total market capitalizations of $5.4 trillion and $209 billion, respectively.

Who founded Perplexity AI?

Perplexity was founded in 2022 by:

• Aravind Srinivas: The company's CEO, who was formerly an AI research scientist at OpenAI and a research intern at both Google and DeepMind.
• Denis Yarats: The CTO, who was formerly an AI research scientist at Meta. 
• Johnny Ho: Perplexity's Chief Strategy Officer, who was formerly an engineer at Quora as well as a quantitative trader.
• Andy Konwinski: The co-founder of Databricks.

This founding team's belief is that everyone in the world should have the information they need, as fast as possible.

Perplexity products

Perplexity started as an AI search engine. While that remains one of its key features, its since expanded its offering.

In July 2025, Perplexity launched Comet, an AI browser add-on which can perform a variety of tasks such as summarizing articles, conducting research, and composing emails directly from within the Perplexity search engine.

In April 2026, Perplexity released Personal Computer. Personal Computer is a 24/7 "digital worker" that sits locally on your computer. It can work across your local files, applications, and Perplexity's web browser to complete a wide range of workflows.

Perplexity's business model

Perplexity fully transitioned from an ad-supported model to a subscription-based business in February 2026.

It uses a freemium model, where users can access some of its core features for free but need to upgrade to a paid subscription for access to more tools and higher usage limits.

Perplexity has two plans for personal users: Pro ($17/month when billed annually) and Max ($167/month when billed annually).

Perplexity also has two plans for enterprise customers: Enterprise Pro ($34/month/seat when billed annually) and Enterprise Max ($271/month/seat when billed annually).

Following the release of Personal Computer and its new usage-based pricing system in April 2026, Perplexity's ARR jumped 50% to $450 million.

The startup had grown ARR from $16 million to $305 million over the preceding two years.

Still, it's Perplexity is likely a long ways from profitability.

In 2024, the company posted a net loss of -$68 million on $34 million in revenue. I would guess its annual losses have widened, likely to more than -$150 million per year.

Perplexity stock price

While Perplexity is still a private company, its shares trade on secondary exchanges like Hiive and Forge.

Perplexity stock is currently listed at $69.54* per share on Forge:

*As of May 11, 2026. Forge Price derived from private market data. Click here for latest pricing.

Disclosure: These are affiliate links. We may receive compensation if you take action through them.

How much is Perplexity worth?

In September 2025, Perplexity raised $200 million at a $20 billion valuation, up from the $18 billion valuation it had received just two months earlier.

Here's a look at how its valuation has changed over time:

The round pushed Perplexity's total funding to $1.615 billion.

Its list of investors includes:

Angel investors	Institutional investors
Jeff Bezos (Amazon)	Accel
Tobi Lutke (Shopify)	Bessemer Venture Partners
Yann LeCun (Meta)	New Enterprise Associates
Andrej Karpathy (OpenAI)	Sequoia Capital
Susan Wojcicki (Alphabet)	Laude Capital
Elad Gil	AIX Ventures
Nat Friedman	Nvidia (NVDA)
Naval Ravikant	SoftBank (SFTBY)
Cristiano Ronaldo	Databricks