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LivePerson

Conversational AI / SaaSUSA
New to Unitard
🀝 Acquired
PeakΒ $4.5 BillionToday
~-99%
from peak
  1. πŸ¦„
    Became a unicorn
    2018
  2. πŸ“ˆ
    Peak valuation
    $4.5 Billion ’21
  3. πŸ’”
    Became a Unitard
    2022
  4. πŸ’Έ
    Last valuation
    ~$45M
Current status
Public (Nasdaq: LPSN); market cap ~$25M; agreed to be acquired by SoundHound AI for ~$45M (April 2026).

The rise & fall

9 moments Β· 1995–2026

The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.

1995
Founded as a web-chat pioneer
Rob LoCascio starts LivePerson to put live chat on websites β€” decades before anyone says 'conversational AI'.
Wikipedia
2018
Joins the unicorn club
The pivot from chat windows to enterprise conversational AI carries the market cap past $1B.
Macrotrends
2021
The peak: the pandemic chat boom$4.5B
Remote-everything demand drives the stock to an all-time high early in the year β€” roughly a $4.5B company.
Macrotrends
2022
Slips out of the club
The market cap crumbles below $1B on its way to a more-than-99% drawdown.
Macrotrends
2022–24
Growth reverses
Revenue falls at double-digit rates as generative-AI rivals leapfrog the platform and a heavy debt load looms.
SEC filing
From the inside Β· Glassdoor reviews, 2022–25
Employee reviews tracked the descent from inside: a pandemic hiring frenzy flipped into near-constant layoffs β€” insiders counted half a dozen rounds in three years β€” while side ventures from banking to healthcare struck staff as diluting focus on an aging platform, and surviving roles shifted to lower-cost regions.
Apr 2026
Agrees to sell to SoundHound AI for ~$45M$45M
The one-time chat pioneer agrees to an exit worth about 1% of its peak value.
SEC filing

πŸ’¬ entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor β†—; dated facts carry their source.

How it happened

LivePerson pioneered web chat and later positioned itself as an enterprise conversational-AI company. Its stock soared in the pandemic chat boom to roughly $4.5B in early 2021, then growth reversed β€” revenue fell at double-digit rates, its AI looked undifferentiated against generative-AI rivals, and a heavy debt load loomed. The stock fell more than 99%, and in 2026 LivePerson agreed to be acquired by SoundHound AI for about $45M.

Source: Macrotrends / stockanalysis / company filings (peak market cap ~$4.5B early 2021; ~$24M market cap June 2026; SoundHound AI acquisition agreement ~$45.2M, April 2026)

Founder

  • Robert LoCascio
    Founder & CEO
    Now Founder & Investor at KIDCompanyLinkedIn β†—

Current roles as self-reported on LinkedIn, retrieved 2026-08-19. See our methodology.

πŸ¦„