Perplexity acquires Carbon, a Seattle startup that helps developers connect data sources to LLMs

Perplexity, an OpenAI rival valued at $9 billion, acquired Carbon, a Seattle startup that helps companies connect external data sources to their large language models.

Founded in 2022, Carbon streamlines the way LLMs access unstructured data from third-party applications such as Google Drive and SharePoint.

The company’s four employees will join San Francisco-based Perplexity, which offers AI search products and has seen its valuation skyrocket this year.

“We believe your AI should be personal to you — at home, work, or on the go — and data connectivity is a key part of everyone’s daily workflows,” Perplexity wrote in a blog post. “Carbon will make it easier for Perplexity’s answer engine to be informed by diverse sources of information, whether that data resides in internal databases, cloud storage, or document repositories.”

Carbon raised a $1.3 million seed round in 2023. Investors include Treble and MKT1, along with several angels.

Carbon CEO Derek Tu told GeekWire that it was a “solid outcome” for the company’s investors and team.

“In two years, what started out as sketches on a WeWork whiteboard in Seattle transformed into a leading solution used by many Generative AI companies to connect external data to LLMs,” Tu wrote on LinkedIn.

Tu was previously a tech leader and early employee at Los Angeles e-commerce company Italic, and held product roles at Wayfair, Flywire, and 6sense.

He co-founded Carbon with longtime friend Aditya Chempakasseril, who was an engineer at Italic and has a master’s in computational science from the University of San Diego.