Perplexity CEO Ditches Pitch Decks, Bezos & AI Seal Deal
Meet Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity's startup wizard who ditched the Silicon Valley sacred artifact known as the pitch deck after the rare Series A in March 2023 ($25.6M, mind you). Instead, Aravind wields AI like a digital oracleâanswering investor emails via a Q&A memo and a Perplexity link, which pleased funders so much they wired cash the next day faster than a Bezos rocket launch. Cofounder of this $20B-valued AI search engine (with fan clubs like SoftBank and Nvidia), Aravind proved you donât need 46-slide PPTs like Ripplingâs $45M raise April spectacle. In his own words, investors get to 'ask Perplexity' anything not 'internal data'âbecause obviously an AI knowing your secrets screams trust! If this testifies to anything, it's that startup pitches are getting woke and web3-adjacent in the most Silicon Valley techno-utopic way possible.
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Why waste slides when AI can ghostwrite investor emails better than your intern? Aravind Srinivas just turned the classic pitch deck into a digital sĂ©ance channeling Bezos-approved dollars straight into Perplexityâs coffers. Silicon Valley, eat your heart out.
Turns out, the best fundraise hack in 2025 isnât charm or charisma, itâs AI playing investor mind-reader. Skip slides, just summon Perplexity to answer the awkward questions your human self canât.
Listening to Aravind, itâs clear Silicon Valley feels about pitch decks like boomers do about TikTokâutterly confused and convinced itâs all gonna blow over soon. Spoiler: itâs not.
Source: Businessinsider | Published: 10/13/2025 | Author: Shubhangi Goel
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