On the evening of January 4, AI search company Perplexity AI announced that it had completed a $73.6 million Series B funding round, led by IVP, with investors including NVIDIA (NVIDIA), Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, NEA, Bessemer, Elad Gil, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Databricks, Tobi Lutke, Guillermo Rauch, Naval Ravikant、Balaji Srinivasan。 After closing this round, the company reached a valuation of $520 million. It is reported that Perplexity AI has been established for less than 2 years and currently has no more than 40 employees. But they've created a product that can challenge traditional search giant Google, which now has more than 10 million monthly active users. In 2023, they've processed over 500 million queries and over 1 million downloads on mobile. Perplexity AI offers search services similar to Google Search and Bing Search, where users can type questions in natural language and can get ChatGPT-like answers.

According to official news, AI startup Perplexity announced the completion of a $73.6 million Series B financing at a valuation of $520 million, led by IVP, Series A investors NEA, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman and Databricks, as well as NVIDIA and Jeff Bezos (through the Bezos Expeditions Fund), Balaji Srinivasan, Guillermo Rauch, Austen Allred and other new investors participated. So far, Perplexity has raised a total of $100 million.

Legal AI startup Harvey is in talks for a $70 million to $80 million funding round that will be valued at $700 million, including investments, according to two people familiar with the funding situation, according to The Information on December 14. It is reported that the financing is more than four times the valuation it announced in April. Venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and individual investor Elad Gil, who has previously invested in the company's seed and Series A rounds, will co-lead the round, according to people familiar with the matter. In addition, existing investors Sequoia Capital and OpenAI Venture Fund will also participate in this round of investment.

Llama, a smart contract access control and governance platform, announced the closing of a $6 million seed round led by Founders Fund and Electric Capital, with participation from Elad Gil, Sandeep Nailwal, Stani Kulechov, Will Gaybrick, Amplify Partners and FJ Labs. It is reported that Llama has launched a full-stack platform to make access control and governance more effective and secure. All major EVM chains are currently live.

PANews reported on August 31 that Dan Romero, co-founder of the decentralized social protocol Farcaster, said on the X platform that Farcaster has launched the V3 version and launched it on OP Mainnet. To commemorate the launch of the V3 version, Farcaster launched a commemorative NFT on Zora, and users can cast it for free on the Base network. Previously on August 22, Farcaster announced that it would migrate to OP Mainnet. It is reported that Farcaster announced the completion of US$30 million in financing in July last year, led by a16z, with participation from Standard Crypto, Elad Gil, 1confirmation and others.

Odaily Planet Daily reported that Web3 marketing company DeForm completed a US$4.6 million seed round of financing, led by Kindred Ventures, with participation from Elad Gil, Scalar Capital and others. DeForm builds on the Layer1 network Alchemy, providing marketers with blockchain-based tools to help expand the digital marketing landscape. Marketers can use the DeForm platform to understand users based on their wallet transaction history and holding data, so as to provide tailored marketing plans. (The Block)

Jinse Finance reported that Web3 marketing company DeForm completed a $4.6 million seed round of financing led by Kindred Ventures, Elad Gil, Scalar Capital, A.Capital, Alchemy Ventures, Naval Ravikat, Sota Watanabe, Sep Kam_, Scott Belsky, Marc Other companies, including Bhargava, also participated in the round. The San Francisco-based startup, born out of parent company Contribution Labs, provides marketers with blockchain-based tools to help expand the digital marketing landscape. Marketers can use the DeForm platform to understand users based on their wallet transaction history and token ownership to provide tailored marketing plans.

Odaily Planet Daily News San Francisco-based encrypted game developer and publisher Argus Labs completed a $10 million seed round of financing, led by Haun Ventures, Elad Gil, Balaji Srinivasan, Siqi Chen, Kevin Aluwi, Sunny Agarwal, Calvin Liu, Scott Moore, Robot Ventures, Anagram and Dispersion Capital participated. Meanwhile, Argus launched World Engine, a new blockchain-based software development kit designed to help other developers build and customize interoperable game worlds. (The Block)