Today, as artificial intelligence technology continues to develop, many traditional business activities are also changing subtly. Recently, Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of the AI search tool Perplexity, mentioned in an interview at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley that he has abandoned traditional pitch presentations (PPTs) and now uses artificial intelligence to conduct investor pitches.

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Image source note: The image was generated by AI, and the image licensing service provider is Midjourney.

Srinivas mentioned that he only created a pitch presentation once during his Series A funding, and for subsequent funding rounds, he relied on AI assistance. He said that during fundraising, it's enough to write a memo and invite investors to ask questions freely. Except for questions involving internal data, other content can be directly queried and answered through Perplexity, greatly improving communication efficiency.

When talking about the details of his most recent funding round, Srinivas shared his pitching approach. He held a Zoom webinar for a large investor, where he answered many questions. After the meeting, the investor sent a long email with more questions. Srinivas then copied the content of the email into Perplexity and asked the AI to "answer like Aravind." The generated answer links were directly replied to the investor, asking if they were satisfied. If there were further needs, Srinivas said he could provide more background information.

Eventually, this new way of communication was recognized by the investors, and the fund transfer was completed the next day. Although Srinivas' approach is not common in Silicon Valley, it shows the potential and application prospects of artificial intelligence in business financing.

Notably, Perplexity successfully closed a $25.6 million Series A funding round in March 2023, and its valuation is expected to reach $2 billion in the new funding round. Srinivas' experience not only reflects the application of AI technology in corporate operations but also demonstrates the possible changes brought by new funding models.

Key Points:

🌟 Srinivas gave up traditional PPTs and used AI to assist in funding pitches.

🤖 Perplexity is used to answer investors' questions in real time, improving communication efficiency.

💰 The recent funding was successful, and the fund transfer was completed within one day.