Perplexity Is on the Prowl to Buy Web Browsers

The Information (paywalled, alas):

In December, Perplexity discussed possibly buying the six-year-old The Browser Co. with that company’s leaders, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. Talks with the company, which operates an AI-powered web browser, Dia, did not progress, and no price was discussed.

OpenAI has also spoken to The Browser Co. executives about possibly selling to the ChatGPT creator, according to two people familiar with the discussions. Those discussions went further, to the point of a possible price, but ended after the two sides couldn’t agree on terms.

Then, earlier this summer, Perplexity offered to buy Brave, a San Francisco–based company that runs a privacy-focused web browser and search engine, for around $1 billion, primarily in Perplexity’s stock, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation. But the two sides couldn’t agree on price and the deal discussions didn’t move forward, the person said.

Meanwhile, investors in Perplexity and DuckDuckGo tried to arrange meetings between the two companies’ leaders, according to people close to the companies. Perplexity CEO Srinivas and Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of 17-year-old DuckDuckGo, met and discussed Perplexity’s interest in acquiring browsers as a way of reaching more consumers, one of the people said. The conversations didn’t lead to any offer.

DuckDuckGo is even more privacy-focused than Brave. It’s their entire brand. Perplexity isn’t privacy-focused at all. And Perplexity has already made their own browser, Comet, which is so cool you currently have to pay $200/month to get access to it. Comet is, unsurprisingly, forked from Chromium, and pretty much looks like an uglier version of Chrome. Brave Browser looks almost exactly like Chrome (and is probably my favorite Chromium-based browser).

None of this makes any sense, so it’s no surprise most of these talks didn’t go far, and Brave rejected the supposed $1 billion offer in Perplexity stock, which as far as I’m concerned might as well have been $1 billion in Monopoly money. Why not call Eddy Cue and see if Apple wants to sell Safari?

★ Wednesday, 13 August 2025