Deepgram secures $130M at $1.3B valuation, acquires YC-backed AI startup

Voice AI adoption has surged across sales, marketing, customer support, and consumer applications in recent years. This growth has driven more business—and investor interest—toward model providers. Riding that wave, Deepgram announced today it has secured $130 million in Series C funding led by AVP at a $1.3 billion valuation.

Existing investors including Alkeon, In-Q-Tel, Madrona, Tiger, Wing, and Y Combinator also contributed additional capital. New backers such as Alumni Ventures, Columbia University, Princeville Capital, Twilio, and SAP joined the round. To date, the company has raised more than $215 million in total funding.

This raise continues the pattern of major voice AI funding rounds seen last year, including Sesame’s $250 million Series B, ElevenLab’s $180 million Series C, and Gradium’s $70 million seed round.

Elizabeth de Saint-Aignan, a partner at AVP, told TechCrunch that as her fund spoke with enterprises about their AI usage, voice applications consistently surfaced, prompting deeper exploration of companies in the space.

“In 2024, when we were talking to enterprises about how they were thinking about using AI inside their business, we started to hear about them using voice AI in processes like contact centers and sales developments. When we chatted with them more, we realized a lot of voice AI tech was powered by Deepgram, and that’s what led us to them [Deepgram],” de Saint-Aignan said.

She noted that voice AI has the potential to improve customer interactions with enterprises while lowering operational costs, and that Deepgram could play a central role in that shift.

Deepgram offers a suite of text-to-speech and speech-to-text models, along with platforms and APIs designed for conversational speech recognition and low-latency interruption handling. The company reports that more than 1,300 organizations use its voice AI products and models, including meeting notetaker Granola, voice agent startup Vapi, and Twilio.

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The company’s CEO, Scott Stephenson, said that the company didn’t need the fundraise and it was cashflow positive last year.

“In the last year, voice AI has gone mainstream, and there is more potential pull. We see that we can make larger investment sooner in order to accelerate growth. And that is why we felt it could be a good time to raise,” he said.

“We weren’t out looking for a raise, though. We had multiple people coming to us. We wanted strategic investors who understand voice AI and the technical intricacies of it and have relationships with companies building using the technology.”

The company plans to use the new funding to expand its global presence and improve multilingual support. It is also focusing on restaurant applications via voice AI. To that end, it has acquired Y Combinator-backed OfOne, which developed a voice AI solution for quick-service restaurants. The startup claims over 93% accuracy in order taking. Voice AI has faced hurdles in the restaurant sector—last year, Taco Bell pulled its voice AI experiment after a person ordered 18,000 water cups.

“I am excited about this [voice AI-driven food ordering] because food ordering might be the first positive interaction more than 300 million Americans have with voice AI. There have been a lot of sour interactions with voice AI over the last 20 years, where a lot of assistants have come out, and people felt that those didn’t provide a magical experience. But when you can order your food using natural conversation, people would think the technology is ready,” Stephenson said.

Investor interest in the space appears strong, as OfOne’s acquisition follows Presto—which serves brands like Carl’s Jr.—securing $10 million in new funding.

Analysts estimate the voice market will grow more than 30% year-over-year, reaching $14–$20 billion by 2030. At that growth rate, model and API providers are positioned to become multibillion-dollar companies by serving as core infrastructure for enterprises and startups building voice solutions.