AI startup Perplexity made a formal offer to acquire Google’s Chrome browser for US$34.5 billion, an audacious bid to get ahead of a potential requirement for the search giant to sell the web browser in US antitrust proceedings.
The unsolicited bid, which Perplexity intends to fund with the help of outside investors, was sent to Alphabet Inc’s Google on Tuesday morning, a Perplexity spokesperson said. It comes not long after rival artificial intelligence startup OpenAI also expressed interest in acquiring Chrome, which together with the open-source Chromium software is the main way people access the web on PCs.
Google declined to comment. The company has said it intends to appeal the judge’s ruling that it has illegally monopolized the search market, which could delay a remedy for months or years. It also plans to challenge any ruling that calls for Chrome to be divested and has proposed a narrower set of remedies that would modify its default search agreements with Apple, Mozilla and Android, to open up the search market to competition.
After a federal judge found last year that Google has an illegal monopoly in internet search, the US government has said it wants Google to sell the Chrome browser and license search data to competitors, among other proposed changes. US District Judge Amit Mehta, who heard the case, is expected to issue a ruling in the coming days with remedies to prevent the company from monopolizing the online search market.
San Francisco-based startup Perplexity, which has sought to woo users from Google by offering search powered by AI, earlier this year raised US$100 million in a round of funding that valued it at US$18 billion, Bloomberg News reported. That raises the question of how Perplexity could afford to follow through on its Chrome offer.
“Multiple large investment funds have agreed to finance the transaction in full,” Perplexity Chief Business Officer Dmitry Shevelenko said. Perplexity declined to name the firms.
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Perplexity’s offer “vastly undervalues the asset, and should not be taken seriously,” said Colin Sebastian, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co, who estimates its value closer to US$100 billion. He also sees a forced spinoff as “unlikely given the potential harm to users through lower-quality and less reliable products, and complexity in untethering these products from Google’s platform when alternative remedies can achieve stated judicial goals.”
It isn’t the first time Perplexity has made an offer for a major internet property ahead of a forced transition. Earlier this year, the company also submitted a bid to TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd., to merge with its US operations and create a new entity. TikTok is facing a US ban without a deal.
The field of web browsers has seen renewed interest as AI companies seek to build agents that can complete online shopping and other tasks for users. Perplexity has said it is preparing to release a browser called Comet that features an AI agent.
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The company added that it would not make any “stealth modifications” to Chrome. “This is part of our commitment to continuity and choice for users, and will likely be seen as having the benefit of stability for Google and its many advertisers,” the spokesperson wrote.
If the bid is accepted and a deal is approved, Perplexity said it would invest US$3 billion over the next two years in Chrome and Chromium and “extend offers to a substantial portion of Chrome talent.” The company added that its offer to Google did not include any equity in Perplexity — to avoid any antitrust concerns.
