Overview
- SoundHound said it will acquire LivePerson in an all-stock transaction that values LivePerson’s equity at about $43 million and the business at roughly $250 million in enterprise value, with about $74 million in cash expected at closing.
- The company plans to combine its voice and task-focused AI with LivePerson’s digital messaging, which handles about one billion customer messages each month, creating one system for phone and chat that can train on far more real conversations.
- Shares rose nearly 5% to around $8 after the announcement, and Wedbush kept an Outperform rating with a $12 target, citing the data scale and broader customer reach the merger would bring.
- Management expects the deal to close in the second half of 2026 pending approvals, with most revenue impact in 2027, and investors are now looking to the May 7 first-quarter report for signs of stronger margins and progress on 2026 goals.
- In a separate update, SoundHound expanded its Casey’s partnership to deploy voice ordering agents at more than 2,600 stores, a rollout that aims to speed up phone orders and let staff focus on serving customers in the store.