LiveKit
 | This article contains promotional content. (August 2026) |
 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Artificial intelligence |
| Founded | 2021 |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | San Francisco, CA, USA |
| Website | livekit |
LiveKit is an American technology company that provides software for building voice, video, and physical AI agents, along with cloud infrastructure.[1] The company is based in San Francisco, California.
History
[edit]LiveKit was founded in 2021 by David Zhao and Russ d'Sa, who serves as chief executive officer.[1] It began as an open-source project for developers, to simplify the process of building real-time audio and video applications, to transmit audio and video to users in real time, using the WebRTC protocol.[2][3][4] Demand for a cloud-hosted version of LiveKit from companies such as Spotify, Oracle, and Reddit led d'Sa and Zhao to start a company, expanding the open-source project and creating a cloud version, LiveKit Cloud.[4]
Shortly after OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT, d'Sa created a demo of a voice interface with the chatbot, using LiveKit's technology, which led to a deal between the two companies to use LiveKit Cloud for ChatGPT's voice modes.[1][3] Other customers include Salesforce, Meta, Microsoft, SpaceXAI, and 911 emergency services.[1][3][4][5] The software underpins Visio, a video conferencing tool built by the government of France.[5] In iOS 18, LiveKit is embedded into FaceTime for emergency calls.[2]
Technology
[edit]The company provides software and services for building and running voice, video, and physical AI agents, allowing customers to build AI agents and run them on its network. It also provides network infrastructure hosted on cloud providers, for services like audio streaming.[1] LiveKit transfers audio to an AI model, which converts the audio to text, processes it through a language model, and converts the response to speech.[2] Its Agent Framework allows developers to attach Python or Node.js programs to LiveKit rooms as participants, to enable activities such as voice processing.[3]
Funding
[edit]In December 2021, LiveKit announced a $7 million seed round led by Redpoint Ventures, followed by an additional $8 million seed round in 2022.[6][7] In June 2024, LiveKit raised $22 million in series A funding led by Altimeter Capital.[8] In April 2025, LiveKit raised $45 million in a series B funding round led by Altimeter,[4] at a $345 million valuation.[9] In January 2026, LiveKit raised $100 million in a series C funding round led by Index Ventures, bringing its total amount raised to $183 million and valuing the company at $1 billion.[1][3]
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bass, Dina (22 January 2026). "LiveKit, Seller of Voice Tools to OpenAI, Raises $100 Million". Bloomberg. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
- 1 2 3 Makaryan, Martin (26 September 2024). "5 Q's for Russell D'Sa, Co-founder and CEO of LiveKit". Center for Data Innovation. Retrieved 17 August 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 5 Riley, Duncan (22 January 2026). "LiveKit raises $100M at $1B valuation to scale real-time AI and media platform". Silicon Angle. Retrieved 24 August 2026.
- 1 2 3 4 Wiggers, Kyle (10 April 2025). "LiveKit's tools power real-time communications, including OpenAI's Voice Mode". TechCrunch. Retrieved 24 August 2026.
- 1 2 Bovenziner, Noah (11 February 2026). "Inside the open source project powering France's video platform revolution". The Stack. Retrieved 24 August 2026.
- ↑ Hall, Christine (13 December 2021). "LiveKit co-founder believes the metaverse needs open infrastructure". TechCrunch. Retrieved 26 August 2026.
- ↑ "LiveKit Raises $100M In Series C Funding Led By Index Ventures". Superb Crew. 27 January 2026. Retrieved 26 August 2026.
- ↑ Shrivastava, Rashi (4 June 2024). "This $110 Million Startup Is Building A Nervous System For AI". Forbes. Retrieved 26 August 2026.
- ↑ Feldman, Amy (12 August 2025). "Next Billion-Dollar Startups 2025". Forbes. Retrieved 26 August 2026.