'Chennai boy' Aravind Srinivas becomes India’s youngest billionaire with Perplexity AI’s global surge

IIT Madras alumnus and Perplexity AI co-founder enters M3M Hurun India Rich List 2025 with Rs 21,190 crore wealth, redefining India’s tech story

Aravind Srinivas, the 31-year-old co-founder and CEO of Perplexity AI, has just rewritten India’s wealth rankings. The Chennai-born entrepreneur has debuted on the M3M Hurun India Rich List 2025 with a net worth of Rs 21,190 crore, making him the country’s youngest billionaire.

Hurun’s report framed Srinivas’ debut as more than just another billionaire addition. It called his rise a marker of India’s shift from a services-centric economy to a deep-tech, product-led powerhouse. His fortune comes not from inherited wealth or traditional industries, but from building a foundational AI model competing with global giants.

Who is Aravind Srinivas?

Srinivas’ journey traces the arc of India’s new-age tech entrepreneurs. Born on June 7, 1994, in Chennai, he showed an early appetite for science and problem-solving.

He earned dual degrees in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras, where he also taught advanced courses on reinforcement learning. He later pursued a PhD in Computer Science at UC Berkeley, with research spanning reinforcement learning, image generation, and transformer-based vision models.

His early career took him to some of the world’s leading AI labs: OpenAI, Google, and DeepMind, where he worked on projects like DALL-E 2, HaloNet, and ResNet-RS. This experience gave him the foundation to launch a company of his own.

Building Perplexity AI

In August 2022, Srinivas co-founded Perplexity AI with Denis Yarats and Andy Konwinski. The idea was deceptively simple: build a chat-based search engine that delivers fast, accurate, and trustworthy answers, in his words, “the fastest way to get answers to any question.”

Perplexity quickly gained traction. It secured backing from marquee investors including Jeff Bezos, and even drew buyout interest from Apple and Meta. But Srinivas has made it clear: Perplexity will stay independent, with an IPO planned after 2028.

Wealth from AI

The M3M Hurun Rich List pegs Srinivas’ wealth at Rs 21,190 crore, placing him ahead of other high-profile young Indian entrepreneurs such as:

Kaivalya Vohra (22; Zepto) – Rs 4,480 crore
Aadit Palicha (23; Zepto) – Rs 5,380 crore
Ritesh Agarwal (31; Prism/OYO) – Rs 14,400 crore
Shashvat Nakrani (27; BharatPe) – Rs 1,340 crore
Trishneet Arora (30; TAC Security) – Rs 1,820 crore

This new crop of entrepreneurs is younger, product-driven, and global in ambition, reflecting how India’s startup ecosystem has matured.

India at the center of Perplexity’s play

Interestingly, India is not just where Srinivas was born, it is also becoming Perplexity’s largest user base worldwide. The surge in Indian users has made the country central to the company’s growth strategy.

Srinivas has already hinted at setting up a Perplexity investment fund in India to back AI startups, even as he continues angel investing in ventures like ElevenLabs (AI voice) and Suno (AI music).