Voice, Speech & Realtime AI

Deepgram raises $130M Series C at $1.3B valuation to expand real-time Voice AI

Source: Deepgram · Jan 13, 2026

Deepgram closed a $130 million Series C at a $1.3 billion valuation, and the investor list is as telling as the check size. Alongside lead investor AVP, the round pulled in BlackRock for balance-sheet conviction plus three strategic enterprise players — Twilio, ServiceNow Ventures, and SAP — whose participation looks less like passive capital and more like a bet on Deepgram becoming embedded infrastructure inside communications, workflow, and ERP platforms that already sit in front of millions of enterprise seats.

The stated use of funds splits three ways: continued build-out of Deepgram's real-time Voice AI models and APIs, the recently closed acquisition of OfOne (a voice-ordering AI company, extending Deepgram further into applied, vertical-specific voice deployments rather than staying a pure infrastructure layer), and a new San Francisco Voice AI Collaboration Hub — a physical bet on voice AI talent density in one metro, at a moment when most of the category's hiring is fully remote.

What stands out about this round versus the wider 2026 voice-AI funding wave is the strategic-investor mix. When Twilio, ServiceNow, and SAP write checks into a voice-model company rather than just building or buying the capability themselves, it's a signal that even platform incumbents with real AI budgets have decided the underlying voice-model layer is worth partnering into rather than replicating in-house. That's a favorable read on how defensible the model layer still is, even as voice AI overall gets more commoditized at the application layer.

For a company operating in structured, licensable conversational data, Deepgram's trajectory is worth watching on two fronts. First, as a scaled infrastructure competitor whose API is increasingly the default choice for enterprises building voice products, which shapes how much of the voice-interview stack gets commoditized versus stays differentiated. Second, as a bellwether for enterprise appetite: when ServiceNow and SAP are willing to co-invest in voice-AI infrastructure, it confirms that structured voice interaction — the same underlying content type our interview-data business produces — is being treated as core enterprise workflow, not a novelty feature.

Key Points

• $130M Series C led by AVP, valuing Deepgram at $1.3B
• BlackRock, Twilio, ServiceNow Ventures, SAP, and Citi Ventures all joined the round
• Funds real-time Voice AI model and API expansion, the OfOne acquisition, and a new SF Voice AI Collaboration Hub
• Strategic participation from Twilio, ServiceNow, and SAP signals deep enterprise-platform integration ambitions