Real-time voice AI startup Deepgram has raised $130 million in Series C funding and will also acquire voice AI startup OfOne, SiliconANGLE reported on Jan. 13 local time.

The Series C round was led by AVP. Existing and new investors including Alkeon, In-Q-Tel, Madrona, Tiger, Wing, Y Combinator, Columbia University, Twilio, SAP and Princeville Capital participated. The funding valued Deepgram at $1.3 billion.

Deepgram says its speech recognition engine helps AI models understand human speech regardless of accent.

It also supports an "interrupt" function that immediately adjusts responses when a person cuts in.

Deepgram CEO Scott Stephenson said, "Real-time voice AI has to respond within 500 milliseconds." He added, "From 2025, consumers began to recognise the possibilities of voice AI beyond existing voice technologies like Siri."

Deepgram has developed the text-to-speech system "Aura-2," the real-time speech-to-text model "Nova-3" and "Flux," an interactive speech recognition model for chatbots. More than 1,300 companies currently use the Deepgram API.

Through the OfOne acquisition, Deepgram will expand into the restaurant and drive-thru market. The company said it expects OfOne's technology, a core of the "Deepgram for Restaurants" service, to improve the accuracy and speed of real-time AI-based ordering systems. Stephenson said, "Retail will be the first mainstream touchpoint for voice AI." He added, "We are advancing the technology so AI works accurately even in complex drive-thru environments."