Listen Labs Scraps $125 Million Round as Salesforce Weighs $2 Billion Acquisition
Updated
Updated · TechCrunch · Sep 10
Listen Labs Scraps $125 Million Round as Salesforce Weighs $2 Billion Acquisition
1 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · Sep 10
Summary
$125 million in Series C financing at a $1.5 billion valuation never closed after Listen Labs walked away from a signed term sheet, an unusual step in venture funding.
Salesforce has held talks to buy the voice-AI market research startup for about $2 billion, though discussions remain unfinished and could still fall apart.
Listen Labs generates about $30 million in annualized revenue, and one person familiar with Salesforce deals said a roughly 67-times-revenue price could prove too rich for the CRM company.
Simile's late-July $200 million Series B at a $2 billion valuation likely reset pricing expectations; investors said Listen Labs could seek $2 billion or more if acquisition talks fail.
The three-year-old startup was valued at $500 million in January, and counts Microsoft, Canva, Anthropic and Sweetgreen among customers using its AI-driven customer interview tools.