Perplexity offers $34.5 billion for Google Chrome: What’s behind the surprise bid?

Artificial-intelligence startup Perplexity has made a surprise bid to buy Google’s Chrome browser for $34.5 billion, almost twice its own $18 billion valuation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

Perplexity said that several large venture-capital funds had agreed to fully back the bid, which comes as a US judge weighs remedies in a landmark antitrust case against Google’s search business.

Estimates for Chrome’s enterprise value range from $20 billion to $50 billion, according to the report.

Why the surprise bid

Last year, US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google had illegally monopolised the search market.

The Justice Department has proposed that Google sell Chrome, which has about 3.5 billion users and more than 60% of the global browser market.

The judge is also considering other remedies, such as limiting Google’s default search agreements with device makers and requiring it to share data with rivals. He is expected to rule this month on how to restore competition.

Perplexity’s letter to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai described its bid as intended to “satisfy an antitrust remedy in highest public interest by placing Chrome with a capable, independent operator,” the Journal said.

While Google has not indicated any willingness to sell, the offer is seen as an attempt to signal to the judge that there is an interested buyer, should he force a sale.

Pichai testified earlier this year that such a move could harm the company’s business, deter investment in new technology, and create security risks, the report said.

Founded in 2022, San Francisco-based Perplexity recently launched its own browser, Comet, to select users, and said it would continue supporting Chromium and keep Google as Chrome’s default search engine if it acquired the browser, though users could change settings.

Perplexity has assured it would maintain users’ current browsing preferences, including Google as the default search engine, if it were to buy Chrome, according to CNN.