Voice AI Engine and OpenAI Partner LiveKit Hits $1B Valuation with $100M Funding

LiveKit — the real-time infrastructure company

powering voice and video experiences for AI — has officially joined the unicorn club with a $1 billion valuation after raising $100 million in Series C funding.

The investment round was led by Index Ventures and included participation from returning backers such as Salesforce Ventures, Altimeter Capital Management, Hanabi Capital, and Redpoint Ventures.

This funding milestone positions LiveKit as one of the most exciting AI infrastructure companies in the voice AI ecosystem, accelerating its growth in the booming markets of real-time voice AI, video communication, and multimodal AI applications.

Investors clearly see LiveKit’s value in bridging the gap between raw AI models and the real-time delivery layer that makes human-like conversations and interactive experiences possible.

What Is LiveKit and Why It Matters:

LiveKit began in 2021 as an open-source WebRTC project aimed at solving a core challenge: how to build low-latency, reliable audio and video communication that works across devices, browsers, and mobile platforms.

At its core, LiveKit provides:

- Real-time audio and video streaming infrastructure using WebRTC.

- A global managed cloud platform for deploying voice and video applications.

- SDKs and APIs for developers to embed voice/video into apps without building infrastructure from scratch.

From its open-source roots, LiveKit evolved into a full developer platform that strings together real-time media transport, session orchestration, and AI model integration — a critical layer in the modern voice AI stack.

LiveKit + OpenAI: Powering ChatGPT Voice Mode:

One of LiveKit’s most impactful partnerships is with OpenAI. The company’s infrastructure powers OpenAI’s ChatGPT Advanced Voice Mode, enabling sub-100 millisecond interactive voice conversations that feel natural and responsive. The integration leverages LiveKit’s real-time media streaming layer and OpenAI’s Realtime API, syncing speech-to-text, AI inference, and text-to-speech in a continuous stream.

Developers can now use the new Multimodal Agent API built by LiveKit and OpenAI, which makes it easier to build applications that “listen and speak like ChatGPT.” This API abstracts protocol complexity and provides an accessible interface to build custom voice AI apps with real-time speech interactions.

This partnership is significant for developers and enterprises seeking to build voice interfaces, conversational AI agents, or interactive customer support tools, without needing deep expertise in media transport protocols or real-time systems.

Expanding Client Base and High-Impact Use Cases:

Beyond the OpenAI integration, LiveKit’s technology drives real-time experiences for a growing list of enterprise customers, including:

- Salesforce — enterprise customer engagement platforms.

- Tesla — in-vehicle interactive systems and AI interfaces.

- xAI — AI conversational systems.

- 911 emergency services — where reliability and latency are safety-critical.

- Mental health providers — supporting real-time conversational tools.

These diverse deployments highlight how LiveKit has moved beyond developer hobby projects to mission-critical infrastructure in regulated and high-stakes environments.

LiveKit Technology: Real-Time Done Right:

LiveKit’s stack emphasizes key capabilities that fuel adoption by enterprises and developers:

- Ultra-Low Latency Streaming – Real-time audio and video with minimal delays, essential for natural voice interactions.

- WebRTC Foundation – Built on WebRTC with a Selective Forwarding Unit (SFU) that streams media efficiently and scales globally.

- Managed Cloud or Self-Hosted Options – Teams can self-host for compliance or use LiveKit Cloud for enterprise SLA, observability, and scaling.

- Developer-Friendly APIs – SDKs for JavaScript, mobile, cross-platform tools like Flutter and Unity.

- AI Agent Frameworks – Support for Python and Node.js to build voice agents that respond in real time with LLMs.

The Future of Voice AI Infrastructure:

LiveKit plans to scale its infrastructure for the growing needs of voice-first computing.

Future priorities identified by the company and investors include:

- Edge acceleration and on-device fallbacks.

- Real-time translation and richer multimodal features.

- Enterprise resilience with compliance options and regional isolation.

As AI continues shifting toward interactive, conversational experiences — from customer support bots to voice assistants — LiveKit sits at the fulcrum between raw AI models and seamless real-time delivery.