Perplexity has reportedly closed a $500 million funding round

There’s Perplexity, a search engine powered by artificial intelligence reported closed a $500 million funding round, valuing the startup at $9 billion.

The round was led by Institutional Venture Partners and closed in early December, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. In an email to TechCrunch, a Perplexity spokesperson declined to comment.

The mammoth tranche comes as competition heats up in AI-powered search. OpenAI was recently launched ChatGPT SearchA response to confusion. Google is developing capabilities to compete with some of what Perplexity offers, including: AI generated summaries and answers on search results pages.

This week, Information informed Google plans to take a more aggressive step, potentially building an “AI mode” like a chatbot in Google Search.

Confusion isn’t resting on its laurels — even when fighting class actions claim alleged copyright infringement. On Wednesday, the company did the first purchaseacquires Carbon, a startup that specializes in connecting artificial intelligence systems to external data sources.