Deepgram buys Daily, the company behind the open-source voice agent framework Pipecat

Voice AI company Deepgram said on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026, that it is acquiring Daily, maker of the widely used open-source voice agent framework Pipecat and a real-time voice and video network. Terms were not disclosed.

Voice agents are a stack: ears, brain, mouth, and the pipes in between. Deepgram makes the ears and mouth; with Daily it now owns a popular set of pipes too. The open-source promise matters because Pipecat's whole appeal is that it lets developers swap in anybody's models, including Deepgram's rivals. A foundation and a BSD license are good signs; the real test is whether competitors' models still get first-class treatment two years from now.

Deepgram said on Oct. 29, 2026, that it is acquiring Daily. Daily makes Pipecat, an open-source framework for building voice AI agents, software that talks with a person out loud. A framework is shared code other people build on. Open source means that code is public. Daily also runs a real-time voice and video network, with 75 points of presence, that connects a person to a voice agent. A point of presence is a place on the network where that traffic enters. Those lines are Deepgram's and Daily's.

The companies did not disclose the terms. The announcements do not say what Deepgram is paying.

Pipecat stays open source and free under its existing BSD 2-clause license. That license is a short permission to use, change, and share the code, including inside a product a company sells. Deepgram, Daily, and organizations that use and contribute to Pipecat are setting up an independent Pipecat Foundation. A foundation, here, is a separate group meant to look after the open-source project. Those lines are the companies'.

The Daily team joins Deepgram. Kwindla Hultman Kramer, a Daily co-founder, becomes Deepgram's head of open source. Those roles are the companies'.

Pipecat and Daily's network will sit under Deepgram's upcoming Voice Agent Platform, next to Deepgram's own speech models. A speech model turns spoken sound into text, or text into a voice. Those lines are Deepgram's.

Deepgram also introduced the Real-Time Context Standard, an open protocol it co-developed with the Pipecat team. A protocol is a shared set of rules for how one program talks to another. It passes audio context, such as a whisper or a word that was hard to hear, from one model to the next, along with instructions for how the reply should sound. Those lines are Deepgram's.

TechCrunch, citing PitchBook, reports that Daily has raised more than $62 million. PitchBook tracks private-company funding. The same report says Deepgram reached unicorn status earlier this year with a $130 million Series C. A unicorn is a private company priced at $1 billion or more. A Series C is a later funding round, named with a letter. Both companies were in the same Y Combinator batch in 2016. Y Combinator is a program that funds young companies in groups. Those lines are TechCrunch's.

Deepgram says more than 5,000 organizations use it in production. In production means a real customer's product, not a demo. That count is Deepgram's.

Kramer said, "Keeping Pipecat open was fundamental to our decision to join Deepgram." That quotation is his, in the announcements.

Scott Stephenson, Deepgram's chief executive, said, "We've all seen a voice AI demo that makes the future feel close, only to fail the moment it's needed." That quotation is his, in Deepgram's announcement.

The picture is Deepgram chief executive Scott Stephenson and Daily co-founder Kwindla Hultman Kramer on stage, in front of a Deepgram screen. The credit is Deepgram, via TechCrunch.

In plain terms, Deepgram on Thursday said it is buying Daily, the company behind the free voice-agent toolkit Pipecat, and did not say the price. Pipecat stays free under the same license, with a new independent foundation meant to look after it. Kramer will run open source at Deepgram. TechCrunch says Daily has raised more than $62 million, and that Deepgram's $130 million round earlier this year made it a unicorn. The two companies were in the same startup class in 2016.