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Valuations
Funding
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Books
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HQ Map

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Menu

Frontline
News
Video
Investors
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Sign in

AI Agents & Models
Autonomy
Avatars
Biotech
Blockchain / Crypto
Brain-Computer Interfaces
Climate Tech
Cloud & Edge Computing
Creative Tools
Cybersecurity
Data Infrastructure
Defense
DevTools
Digital Identity
Energy
Food Tech
Health Tech
Longevity
Manufacturing
Materials Science
Mobility
Payments
Quantum Computing
Robotics
Semiconductors
Smart Homes
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Spatial Computing
Voice
Wearables

Voice

Voice

Companies

All subsectors
AI Personal Assistants
Accent Conversion
Contact Center AI
Emotion & Prosody Models
Enterprise Voice Agents
Foundation Models
Headsets & Spatial OS
Home Platforms & Hubs
STT / ASR
Speech Translation
TTS / Voice Synthesis
Vertical Voice Agents
Voice Agent Infrastructure
Voice Dictation
Voice Surveys & Insights

All statuses
Acquired
Private
Public

01DecagonDecagon builds AI customer-support agents that handle ticket resolution, live chat, and voice calls for mid-market and enterprise SaaS companies.
02ElevenLabsElevenLabs builds real-time text-to-speech and voice-cloning models with support for 29 languages and ultra-low latency.
03SierraSierra builds conversational AI agents for enterprise customer-experience workflows, replacing tier-1 support teams.
04Wispr FlowWispr Flow builds AI voice-dictation software that converts natural speech into formatted text across Mac, Windows, iPhone, and Android, supporting 100+ languages. The company offers both consumer and enterprise deployments with compliance certifications for regulated sectors.
05DeepgramDeepgram provides deep-learning-based automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech APIs for real-time transcription and voice synthesis.
06ParloaParloa builds no-code conversational AI agents for European enterprise contact centers, specializing in voice and omnichannel automation.
07PolyAIPolyAI builds conversational AI for enterprise contact centers, specializing in restaurant reservations, hospitality, and logistics support.
08CartesiaCartesia develops ultra-low-latency voice models including Sonic, achieving ~40ms time-to-first-audio for real-time conversational AI.
09OpenAIBuilds frontier large language models including GPT and Codex that power the majority of AI coding tools via API, plus first-party products like ChatGPT and Codex CLI.
10GoogleGoogle designs its own TPU AI chips, makes Pixel Watch and Fitbit wearables, ships Gemini voice and Veo and Imagen media tools, and co-develops Android XR.
11CognigyCognigy builds enterprise conversational AI for customer service, supporting voice, chat, and omnichannel deployments.
12RimeRime develops fast, expressive text-to-speech models optimized for conversational AI and live-agent experiences.
13AssemblyAIAssemblyAI provides AI-powered speech-to-text APIs with sentiment analysis, speaker diarization, and real-time transcription features.
14LiveKitLiveKit provides open-source infrastructure for real-time audio and video, powering voice-agent orchestration and WebRTC-based communication.
15VapiVapi provides a developer platform for building and deploying voice AI agents with sub-second latency and flexible integrations.
16Retell AIRetell AI provides APIs and SDKs for building conversational voice agents with sub-800ms latency and built-in telephony support.
17CrestaCresta provides real-time AI coaching and automation for contact-center agents, analyzing voice and chat to improve sales and support outcomes.
18Resemble AIResemble AI provides voice cloning and custom text-to-speech APIs for gaming, entertainment, and call-center applications.
19Bland AIBland AI offers a platform for deploying outbound and inbound phone-based conversational agents at scale.
20Amazon AlexaAmazon Alexa is the voice assistant and device line that runs on Echo speakers, displays and other hardware. It serves households that want voice control of music, timers and smart-home devices.
21Hume AIHume AI builds empathic voice models that detect and generate emotional prosody in speech for more human-like conversational agents.
22Fish AudioFish Audio builds multilingual TTS and voice-cloning models with support for Chinese, English, and other Asian languages.
23DialpadDialpad provides a cloud business communications platform with built-in voice AI for real-time transcription, sentiment analysis, and agent coaching.
24SesameSesame builds fast, high-fidelity voice models for conversational AI with a focus on multilingual support and low-latency inference.
25AriniArini builds AI phone agents for dental practices, automating appointment scheduling, insurance verification, and patient follow-up.
26Observe.AIObserve.AI provides voice analytics and agent-assist tools for contact centers, analyzing 100% of calls for compliance and coaching.
27Kore.aiKore.ai provides an enterprise conversational AI platform for contact centers, covering voice, chat, and automation across 100+ channels.
28DeepLDeepL provides neural machine translation and launched DeepL Voice in 2024 for real-time speech-to-speech translation.
29SynthflowSynthflow offers a no-code platform for building voice AI agents, targeting SMBs and solo entrepreneurs without technical resources.
30WellSaid LabsWellSaid Labs creates synthetic voice avatars for corporate training, e-learning, and media production with studio-quality output.
31SpeechmaticsSpeechmatics offers automatic speech recognition in 50+ languages with real-time transcription and on-premises deployment options.
32RasaRasa builds open-source and enterprise conversational AI for on-premise voice and text assistants, popular in regulated industries.
33Smallest.aiSmallest.ai builds voice AI infrastructure—text-to-speech synthesis, speech-to-text transcription, and conversational voice agents—for developers and enterprises automating customer interactions and content creation.
34SonioxSoniox develops high-accuracy, low-latency speech recognition optimized for conversational AI and telephony applications.

Tracked

DashaDasha builds conversational AI for voice and text, offering a low-code SDK for developers building phone-based agents.
KUDOKUDO offers a cloud-based platform for multilingual meetings and events with AI-assisted interpretation and real-time translation.
LindyLindy builds AI personal assistants that handle email, scheduling, and voice calls for individuals and small teams.
Murf AIMurf AI provides a studio-quality text-to-speech platform with 120+ AI voices for video production, e-learning, and marketing content.
PhonicPhonic provides conversational voice surveys and qualitative research tools powered by AI transcription and sentiment analysis.
SoundHound AISoundHound AI builds a voice-native conversational AI platform powering in-car assistants, restaurant drive-thru and phone ordering, and enterprise agents through its Amelia platform.
VoiceflowVoiceflow provides a collaborative platform for designing, prototyping, and deploying conversational AI agents across voice and chat.
Yellow.aiYellow.ai provides a conversational AI platform for customer service and employee support with voice, chat, and automation features.
GoodcallGoodcall provides AI phone answering services for small businesses, serving 42,000+ barbershops, salons, and local service providers.
SanasSanas builds real-time accent conversion technology for contact-center agents, translating non-native accents to standard dialects on live calls.

No roster changes this week. The roster is re-evaluated quarterly; read the methodology in the disclosures.

fobi

Everything you need to know in under 10 minutes a day. Plus deep dives on 30 sectors, 1,200+ tracked companies and 40,000+ open roles.

SFO --:--:--·AUS --:--:--·NYC --:--:--·LDN --:--:--·TYO --:--:--·PEK --:--:--·Editorial analysis, not financial advice.·About·FAQ·What’s new·Disclosures·Terms·Privacy·Usage policy·© fobi·

SFO --:--:--·AUS --:--:--·NYC --:--:--·LDN --:--:--·TYO --:--:--·PEK --:--:--·Editorial analysis, not financial advice.·About·FAQ·What’s new·Disclosures·Terms·Privacy·Usage policy·© fobi·

Theme

As of 2026-10-26

Benchmarks

Word Error Rate

% WER

Transcription errors across the Open ASR test suite — lower is better.

↓ lower is better·Open ASR Leaderboard

#01
OtterAI/speech-v3.1
2.8%
#02
zoom/scribe_v2_pro
3.0%
#03
microsoft/azure-speech-07-2026
3.2%
#04
modulate/multilingual
3.2%
#05
sophea/asr-k1 (preview)
3.3%
#06
ibm-granite/granite-speech-5.0-2b
3.6%
#07
TheStageAI/thewhisper-large-v3-turbo
3.8%
#08
sprag/symphony
3.8%
#09
ibm-granite/granite-speech-5.0-470m-turboctc-nc
3.9%
#10
nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2 (fast-gpu-asr)
3.9%
#11
elevenlabs/scribe_v2
3.9%
#12
nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3 (fast-gpu-asr)
3.9%

Throughput (RTFx)

× real-time

Audio-seconds transcribed per second of compute — higher is faster.

↑ higher is better·Open ASR Leaderboard

#01
soundsgoodai/Zipformer-cr-ctc-transducer-XL-290M (fast-gpu-asr, ctc_greedy_search)
24,148×
#02
soundsgoodai/Zipformer-cr-ctc-transducer-XL-290M (fast-gpu-asr, transducer_modified_beam_search)
21,814×
#03
ibm-granite/granite-speech-5.0-470m-turboctc
21,134×

TTS naturalness

Elo

Crowd-voted naturalness of synthesized speech (TTS Arena).

↑ higher is better·TTS Arena

#01
Audio8-TTS-Realistic-0.6B
1,726
#02
Gradium TTS 2026.10
1,610
#03
Aurora
1,560
#04
Vocu V3.0

Transcription cost

$ / minute

Published speech-to-text API price per minute — lower is cheaper.

↓ lower is better·LiteLLM (open pricing)

#01
Groq Whisper v3 Turbo
$0.0007
#02
AssemblyAI Best
$0.0020
#03
ElevenLabs Scribe
$0.0037
#04
Deepgram Nova-3

TTS cost

$ / 1M chars

Published text-to-speech price per million characters — lower is cheaper.

↓ lower is better·LiteLLM (open pricing)

#01
AWS Polly Standard
$4
#02
OpenAI TTS
$15
#03
AWS Polly Neural
$16
#04
OpenAI TTS HD

KPIs

Total funding YTD

$0

across 9 rounds

Companies tracked

0

5 countries

Largest round YTD

$0

OpenAI · Growth

Median round YTD

$0

across 9 rounds

News volume · 7d

0

+71% vs prior 7d

Sentiment · 7d

0

Positive

0

Neutral

0

Negative

Hot company · 7d

ElevenLabs

20 mentions

Most raised · all-time

01OpenAI$162.3B
02Sierra$1.6B
03Google$1.2B

Signals

Venture capital deployed · 2026 YTD

$2.6B

9 announced rounds

▲vs $1.5B in 2025

Sector market cap

$2.0B

1 public company

▬largest = 100% of sector

Largest raise · trailing 12mo

$950M

Series D · Sierra

Catalysts ahead · next 12mo

5

1 earnings · 2 launches

Companies tracked

44

3 public · 41 private

Videos

View all 765 →

Catalysts

Conferences

Major industry dates · soonest first

Nothing on the calendar yet.

Earnings Calls

Public roster companies · forecast from SEC filings

Nov 4, 2026· rumoredSoundHound AI — Q3 2026 earnings

Policy & Courts

Hearings · rulings · statutory deadlines

Nothing on the calendar yet.

Venture Stages

1

Seed

Lindy$10.7M
Rime$5.5M
Retell AI$4.6M
Goodcall$4M
Phonic$4M
Dasha$2M
Arini$500K

2

Series A

Series A

KUDO$21M
Synthflow$20M
Murf AI$10M
WellSaid Labs$10M

3

Series B

Series B

Sesame$250M
Cartesia$100M
Sanas$65M
Speechmatics$62M
Hume AI$50M
Vapi$50M
Bland AI$40M
Voiceflow$15M
Resemble AI$13M

4

Series C

Series C

DeepL$300M
Wispr Flow$280M
Deepgram$130M
Observe.AI$125M
LiveKit$100M
Yellow.ai$78.2M
AssemblyAI$50M
Rasa$30M

5

Series D

Series D

OpenAI$110B
Sierra$950M
ElevenLabs$500M
Parloa$350M
Decagon$250M
Kore.ai$150M
Cresta$125M
PolyAI$86M
Dialpad$50M

6

Public & Acquired

Public & Acquired

Google$1.2B
Cognigy$955M
Amazon Alexa
SoundHound AI

Valuations

Sized by valuation · area is proportional to market value

Zoom

Public caps as of Oct 25, 2026

Public · real-time market capPrivate · last-round valuation

4 companies without valuation on file

Funding & analysis

AI Analysis

Voice sector heating up with mega-rounds: three $250M+ Series C/D deals in past six months

Updated Oct 2026 · 102 rounds

Company

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

Total Raised

Round sizes
Mega-rounds ($200M+) dominate 2026, with Wispr Flow Series C at $280M and Sierra Series D at $950M. Median round size has climbed sharply; early-stage rounds remain under $50M, but Series B/C now regularly exceed $100M. Seed rounds lag at $3–$27M, marking a clear bifurcation.
Stage mix
Capital concentrates in Series C and later. Since 2025, Series D and C rounds account for 40% of total dollars despite only 25% of rounds. Series B remains active ($40–$250M), but seed activity has cooled. Few Pre-seeds or early Seed rounds appear post-2024.
Lead investors
Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Accel lead repeat rounds across stages. Tiger Global, Andreessen Horowitz, and Altimeter Capital dominate growth-stage (Series B/C). Menlo Ventures and General Catalyst lead later-stage Series D rounds. New entrant: Google AI Futures Fund (Resemble AI, Dec 2025).

FOBI Editorial

FOBI Editorial
Voice AI’s enterprise land grab is colliding with its fraud problem—and the winners will be the ones who solve both.
08.09.26
FOBI Editorial
The voice AI arms race is being won by open-source insurgents—not because they’re better, but because they’re harder to stop.
08.02.26
FOBI Editorial
Voice AI’s edge shift is real—but its enterprise value is still being decided in the cloud.
07.26.26
FOBI Editorial
Voice AI’s enterprise adoption is being decided by incumbents, not startups—and the startups winning are the ones letting them lead.
07.19.26

Books

As of 2026-08-01

Relevancy
Most recent

Daniel Jurafsky and James H. Martin · 2008
Speech and Language Processing: An Introduction to Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, and Speech Recognition
The canonical NLP textbook: foundational reference for understanding the linguistic and computational underpinnings of voice systems, from phonetics to dialogue.
Buy Read reviews
Xuedong Huang, Alex Acero, and Hsiao-Wuen Hon · 2001
Spoken Language Processing: A Guide to Theory, Algorithm, and System Development
Bridges theory and practice: teaches the real algorithms (HMMs, acoustic models, TTS, dialog systems) that power commercial voice systems and agent platforms.
Buy Read reviews
James Vlahos · 2019
Talk to Me: How Voice Computing Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Think
Current-state commentary: captures the competitive dynamics and strategic stakes of voice AI circa 2019, before the LLM revolution, documenting the Siri/Alexa/Google Assistant era.
Buy Read reviews
Roberto Pieraccini · 2012
The Voice in the Machine: Building Computers That Understand Speech
Historical frame: shows the long arc of engineering progress and fundamental challenges (naturalness, understanding) that remain central to voice agents today.
Buy Read reviews
Michael McTear · 2022
Conversational AI: Dialogue Systems, Conversational Agents, and Chatbots
Contemporary systems perspective: bridges classical dialogue architecture with modern deep-learning methods, essential for understanding how voice agents manage conversation flow.
Buy Read reviews
Xu Tan · 2023
Neural Text-to-Speech Synthesis
Specialization: the most current TTS reference, covering the neural architectures now deployed in production voice agents and the path to human-quality synthesis.
Buy Read reviews
Roberto Pieraccini · 2021
AI Assistants
Fresh perspective from the same author: updates the voice machine narrative post-deep learning, explaining how modern voice assistants actually work for a general audience.
Buy Read reviews
Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, and Aaron Courville · 2016
Deep Learning
Technical foundation: essential for understanding the neural architectures underlying modern ASR, TTS, and LLM-based voice agents; still the reference in the field.
Buy Read reviews
Brian Christian · 2020
The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values
Strategic frame: voice agents operate as trusted intermediaries in sensitive domains (customer service, healthcare). Understanding alignment challenges and limitations is critical for responsible deployment.
Buy Read reviews
Ian McEwan · 2019
Machines Like Me
Philosophical probe: fiction that unpacks the deeper stakes of building voice agents with human-like interaction—consciousness, consent, and the limits of simulation versus understanding.
Buy Read reviews

Graveyard

Air.ai
FTC filed suit in 2025 alleging deceptive marketing of business opportunities and false earnings claims. March 2026 settlement banned the owners from marketing business opportunities, imposed an $18M monetary judgment (largely suspended), and effectively put the company out of business. Platform was inactive by 2025 with key features broken and refunds stalled.
Obituary

#04

ibm-granite/granite-speech-5.0-470m-turboctc-nc

20,801×

#05

nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2 (fast-gpu-asr)

16,943×

#06

nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3 (fast-gpu-asr)

14,126×

#07

abr-ai/niagara-9m-batch.en

7,217×

#08

nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3

6,228×

#09

nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2

6,148×

#10

nvidia/parakeet-ctc-1.1b

5,137×

#11

abr-ai/niagara-38m-batch.en

4,561×

#12

abr-ai/niagara-19m-batch.en

4,348×

1,552

#05

CastleFlow v1.0

1,549

#06

Inworld TTS MAX

1,547

#07

star-june-2026

1,542

#08

Papla P1

1,538

#09

Inworld TTS

1,530

#10

MiniMax Speech 2.8 HD

1,530

#11

Deepdub eTTS 3.2

1,529

#12

Lightning v3.1 Pro

1,523

$0.0043

#05

OpenAI Whisper

$0.0060

#06

Azure Whisper

$0.0060

$30

#05

Google Chirp

$30

#06

MiniMax Speech Turbo

$60

#07

ElevenLabs v3

$80