SoundHound AI Officially Completes $43M LivePerson Acquisition

SoundHound AI just turned a five-month courtship into a done deal. On September 4, the voice AI company officially closed its acquisition of LivePerson, the enterprise messaging firm that had traded on Nasdaq for years, just two days after LivePerson shareholders gave the merger their final approval.

The mechanics of the deal are almost as notable as the deal itself. Rather than taking on LivePerson's debt, SoundHound wiped it out entirely by issuing 36.9 million new shares to retire the company's secured notes, leaving the combined business debt-free. A few other details stand out from the closing:

• The transaction was valued at roughly $43 million, a 22% premium over LivePerson's 30-day weighted average share price, though total enterprise value lands closer to $250 million once debt restructuring is factored in
• Former LivePerson executive John Collins was named CFO of the combined company
• LivePerson shares have officially stopped trading on Nasdaq as of the closing

The combination gives SoundHound access to LivePerson's enterprise messaging infrastructure, which reportedly processes roughly one billion messages per month across banking, airline and automotive clients, pushing the combined customer base to 25 Fortune 100 companies.

Management is now guiding toward $350 million to $400 million in 2027 revenue, with the real test ahead being whether SoundHound can fold two very different conversational AI businesses — one built on voice, the other on enterprise messaging — into a single platform without losing momentum on either side.