LivePerson vs smallest.ai

8-K Financial Filing Analysis for LivePerson (2026-09-04)

On September 4, 2026, LivePerson, Inc. completed its acquisition by SoundHound AI, Inc., becoming an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of SoundHound. Under the terms of the merger, each share of LivePerson common stock was converted into the right to receive 0.4673 shares of SoundHound Class A common stock, while shares held via the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange Clearing House were converted into $3.31 in cash per share. Concurrently, LivePerson satisfied its First and Second Lien Secured Notes due 2029 through an aggregate distribution of 36,894,839 SoundHound shares and $5,848,000 in cash. Following the closing, LivePerson delisted its common stock from Nasdaq, suspended its SEC reporting obligations, and its entire board of directors resigned.

• SoundHound completed the acquisition of LivePerson on September 4, 2026, converting each LivePerson share into 0.4673 shares of SoundHound Class A common stock (or $3.31 in cash for TASE shares).
• LivePerson's 2029 First and Second Lien Secured Notes were fully resolved via an aggregate issuance of 36,894,839 SoundHound Class A shares plus $5,848,000 in cash.
• LivePerson filed for Nasdaq delisting (Form 25) and deregistration under the Exchange Act (Form 15), accompanied by the resignation of its entire board of directors.

LivePerson has been acquired by SoundHound AI, creating a world-leading Omnichannel Conversational AI powerhouse.

A banner on the LivePerson blog announces that LivePerson has been acquired by SoundHound AI, creating a world-leading Omnichannel Conversational AI powerhouse, with a link to the SoundHound newsroom announcement.

SoundHound AI Completes LivePerson Acquisition

SoundHound AI has finalized its acquisition of LivePerson, a deal first announced in April 2026 with an implied enterprise value of $250 million, and completed on September 4, 2026. The merger combines SoundHound's voice agentic AI with LivePerson's digital messaging infrastructure to create a unified omnichannel conversational AI platform, integrated into SoundHound's OASYS system. The combined entity now serves 25 of the Fortune 100 and holds over 750 patents. John Collins has been appointed CFO. LivePerson's debt was retired at closing, leaving a debt-free balance sheet. SoundHound projects over $500 million in future revenue from existing customers, citing Gartner's forecast of $985 billion in enterprise agentic AI software spending by 2030.

• SoundHound AI completed its acquisition of LivePerson on September 4, 2026.
• The deal was announced in April 2026 with an implied enterprise value of $250 million.
• John Collins was appointed as the new CFO of the combined company.

Smallest.ai Lands $13M Series A for Voice AI

Smallest.ai, a voice AI startup founded in 2023, announced a $13 million Series A funding round on July 31, 2026, led by Seligman Ventures with participation from Sierra Ventures and 3one4 Capital. Additional backers included Better Capital, Upsparks Capital, Schema Ventures, Tiny VC, DeVC and Mission Street Capital. Total funding now exceeds $21 million. The capital will advance a real-time speech-to-speech system designed to reduce latency in enterprise voice interactions, targeting financial services, healthcare and contact centers. The round followed the launch of Lightning V3, V3.1 and V3.2, adding 15-language support, production voice cloning from five seconds of audio, and instruction-following controls. The company highlighted its Hydra asynchronous architecture, which processes listening, reasoning, acting and responding in parallel. Smallest.ai also referenced a May hardware partnership with Tenstorrent for cost-efficient inference.

• Smallest.ai raised $13M in Series A funding led by Seligman Ventures.
• Total funding surpassed $21 million after the round closed on July 30, 2026.
• The round included Sierra Ventures, 3one4 Capital, Better Capital, Upsparks Capital, Schema Ventures, Tiny VC, DeVC and Mission Street Capital.

Smallest.ai raises $13M for humanlike voice AI

Smallest.ai, a startup founded in late 2024, raised $13 million in a Series A round to develop a small, voice-specific AI model intended for real-time conversational agents that sound human. The round was led by Seligman Ventures with participation from Sierra Ventures and 3one4 Capital, bringing total funding to over $21 million. Smallest.ai's approach uses a lightweight real-time voice model for immediate interaction and falls back to larger foundational LLMs when needed. The company targets enterprise customer support use cases—handling accents, multiple languages, and noisy environments—and counts RingCentral and Truecaller among existing customers. Competitors named include ElevenLabs, Cartesia and regional player Sarvam. Sudarshan Kamath is founder and CEO.

• Smallest.ai raised $13 million in a Series A round led by Seligman Ventures.
• Series A participants include Sierra Ventures and 3one4 Capital.
• The funding brings Smallest.ai's total financing to over $21 million.