‘Spoke to Nikhil and Nithin’: Indian-American Perplexity CEO hints at Zerodha collaboration

Aravind Srinivas, the Indian-origin CEO of Perplexity AI, has hinted at an upcoming collaboration with Zerodha.

Updated on: Aug 13, 2025, 11:48:40 IST

By Sanya Jain

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The Indian-origin CEO of Perplexity AI has hinted at an upcoming collaboration with Zerodha. Aravind Srinivas said he has spoken to Nithin and Nikhil Kamath – the billionaire brothers behind India’s largest stockbroker – indicating that a big announcement is in the offing.

Nikhil Kamath (L) is the co-founder of Zerodha, while Aravind Srinivas (R) is the co-founder and CEO of Perplexity AI.

This comment from Srinivas comes shortly after his startup made an unsolicited $34.5 billion (over ₹3,02,152 crore) all-cash bid to acquire Google Chrome, according to a Reuters report.

For some context

This morning, Srinivas announced a new finance-focused feature within Perplexity AI. “Indian stocks are now covered on Perplexity Finance,” he wrote.

“Zerodha when?” an X user asked him in the comments section.

The Indian-origin, San Francisco-based CEO of Perplexity AI then hinted at a possible collaboration, revealing that he had already spoken to the co-founders of Zerodha.

“Spoke to Nikhil and Nithin. Will have something to share soon,” wrote Srinivas.

What is Perplexity AI?

Perplexity is an AI-powered "answer engine"—a hybrid between a search engine and a conversational chatbot. It allows users to ask questions in natural language and receive answers that are supported by real-time web search and source citations.

A possible Zerodha collaboration?

The talk of a Perplexity and Zerodha collaboration is not entirely without precedent. Last week, an X user suggested that Perplexity team up with Zerodha to add Indian stock markets to the finance page of its Comet browser.

Aravind Srinivas had responded to this suggestion by tagging Nikhil Kamath, co-founder of Zerodha. “Absolutely, setting up a call for Monday…” Kamath responded.

Perplexity’s offer to Google

Perplexity AI made a $34.5 billion unsolicited all-cash offer for Alphabet's Chrome browser on Tuesday, a bid far above its own valuation as the startup reaches for the browser's billions of users pivotal to the AI search race.

Run by Aravind Srinivas, Perplexity is no stranger to headline-grabbing offers: it made a similar one for TikTok US in January, offering to merge with the popular short-video app to resolve U.S. concerns about TikTok's Chinese ownership.

(Also read: Indian-origin man offers over ₹3302152 crore to Google just to buy…)

(With inputs from Reuters)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanya Jain
Sanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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