Deepgram has raised $130 million in a Series C funding round, valuing the company at $1.3 billion. The round was led by AVP and reflects growing demand for voice-based artificial intelligence across enterprise and consumer applications.
With this latest raise, Deepgram’s total funding now exceeds $215 million.
Strong investor backing as voice AI adoption accelerates
The Series C round included additional capital from existing investors Alkeon, In-Q-Tel, Madrona, Tiger Global, Wing Venture Capital, and Y Combinator. New backers joining the cap table include Alumni Ventures, Columbia University, Princeville Capital, Twilio, and SAP.
The financing follows a broader wave of large investments in voice AI over the past year, as enterprises increasingly deploy speech technologies in sales, customer support, marketing, and consumer-facing products.
According to AVP, conversations with enterprise customers repeatedly highlighted voice AI as one of the most practical and rapidly adopted AI use cases, particularly in contact centers and revenue-generating workflows.
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From niche capability to core enterprise infrastructure
Deepgram provides speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and conversational voice models designed for low latency, real-time interactions. Its APIs support interruption handling, streaming transcription, and conversational AI use cases at scale.
Today, more than 1,300 organizations use Deepgram’s models and platforms, including companies building meeting assistants, voice agents, and developer tools. Partners and customers include Twilio and a growing number of AI-native startups integrating voice into their products.
Deepgram CEO Scott Stephenson said the company was not actively seeking capital and had reached cash-flow positivity last year. The decision to raise, he explained, was driven by the opportunity to invest more aggressively in global expansion and product development as voice AI adoption reaches a tipping point.
Expanding globally and across languages
A portion of the new funding will be used to expand Deepgram’s international footprint and improve multilingual support, enabling enterprises to deploy voice AI across regions and markets.
The company is also placing a strategic focus on hospitality and food service, where voice AI adoption has historically struggled due to accuracy and customer experience challenges.
Acquisition targets restaurant voice ordering
As part of its expansion strategy, Deepgram has acquired OfOne, a Y Combinator-backed startup that develops voice-based ordering systems for quick-service restaurants.
OfOne claims its system achieves more than 93 percent order accuracy, addressing a key pain point that has caused several large restaurant chains to abandon earlier voice AI experiments.
Stephenson believes food ordering could become one of the first widespread positive consumer interactions with voice AI, helping shift public perception after years of frustrating automated phone systems.
Voice AI market momentum continues
Investor interest in the sector remains strong. OfOne’s acquisition follows fresh funding for competitors such as Presto, which recently raised $10 million to expand its restaurant-focused voice solutions.
Industry analysts project the global voice AI market to grow at more than 30 percent annually, reaching an estimated $14–20 billion by 2030. As voice interfaces become embedded into everyday workflows, infrastructure providers like Deepgram are positioning themselves as foundational layers for the next generation of AI-driven products.
The latest funding and acquisition underline Deepgram’s ambition to become a core platform powering voice interactions across industries, from enterprise software to consumer-facing services.
