San Francisco, CA: Real-time communications and AI infrastructure provider LiveKit achieved unicorn status January 22, 2026 with $100 million in Series C funding at a $1 billion valuation, positioning the platform to scale voice-driven and computer vision applications.
Index Ventures led the round with participation from Salesforce Ventures, Hanabi Capital, Altimeter Capital Management, and Redpoint Ventures. The financing brings LiveKit’s total capital raised to $183 million since its 2021 founding.
Co-founder and CEO Russ d’Sa wrote, “Voice is the most natural interface we have, it’s the one we use with each other every day. And for the first time in history, we can interact with computers in the same way.”
LiveKit powers OpenAI’s ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode, enabling low-latency streaming for conversational AI. Additional customers include xAI, Meta, Spotify, Tesla, 911 emergency service operators, and mental health providers.
The platform originated as an open-source project for building real-time audio and video applications without interruptions. LiveKit offers a WebRTC-based framework that routes audio, video, and data between participants with ultra-low latency, according to the company.
The funding will expand LiveKit’s compute, storage, and network services while scaling infrastructure for voice-driven and computer vision-driven applications. The company has grown from a free developer tool to a managed cloud platform serving thousands of development teams across industries.
LiveKit’s Agent Framework enables developers to attach Python or Node.js programs to LiveKit rooms as participants, creating interactive AI behaviors like voice assistants that process speech and respond in real time.
Salesforce Ventures said, “LiveKit doesn’t just make real-time AI possible; it makes it accessible, composable and scalable for teams of all sizes.”
The round comes ten months after LiveKit’s previous fundraise as the platform expands beyond communications infrastructure into multimodal AI applications combining voice, video, and data processing.
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