Descript Revenue, Valuation, Funding & Investors
Descript is valued at $550M as of October 2022, a 5.5x multiple on its last reported $100M revenue.
Last Descript valuation
$550M
Series C · Oct 2022
Last Descript funding round
$50M
Series C · Oct 2022
Descript revenue
$100M
Series C · Oct 2022
Key investors in Descript
Andreessen Horowitz
Spark Capital
Redpoint
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Daniel GrossOpenAI
About Descript
Descript is a San Francisco-headquartered audio and video editing platform that uses AI-driven transcription to edit content like text documents. The tool supports podcasters, YouTubers, TikTok creators, and businesses for marketing videos, sales training, and team collaboration. Key features include Overdub for voice synthesis, Studio Sound for noise removal, and filler word detection. Descript processes files from popular formats, offers collaborative workspaces, and integrates with Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro for professional workflows.
Founded
2017
HQ
San Francisco, CAWebsite
Status
Privately held
Customer focus
B2C & B2B
Revenue model
Subscription
Revenue
$100M (Oct 2022)
Valuation
$550M (Oct 2022)
Descript Valuation
Descript is currently valued at $550M, based on its Series C in October 2022.
The $50M round was led by OpenAI, with participation from Redpoint, Daniel Gross, Spark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.
Descript's valuation has grown 2.1x from $260M at its Series B in February 2021 to $550M in October 2022, across 2 priced rounds.
Descript valuation by funding round
Revenue multiple| Date | Stage | Valuation | Revenue Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2022 | Series C | $550M | 5.5x |
| Feb 2021 | Series B | $260M | 4.7x |
Descript Revenue
Descript's latest recorded revenue is $100M, as of its Series C in October 2022. At a $550M valuation, that implies a 5.5x revenue multiple.
Revenue grew from $55M in February 2021 to $100M in October 2022, while the revenue multiple moved from 4.7x to 5.5x.
Descript revenue by funding round
| Date | Revenue * | Valuation | Revenue Multiple | Stage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2022 | $100M | $550M | 5.5x | Series C |
| Feb 2021 | $55M | $260M | 4.7x | Series B |
* Revenue (or ARR) figures are the values recorded alongside each funding round. Typically run-rate revenue at the time of the deal, or a reported LTM (last 12 months) revenue.
Descript Funding History
Descript has raised a total of $100M across 4 funding rounds.
Descript's first fundraising round was a $5M seed round in December 2017. The most recent completed round was a $50M Series C in October 2022.
Descript funding rounds
| Date | Stage | Investors | Raised | Valuation | Deal Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2022 | Series C | OpenAI (lead); Redpoint; Daniel Gross; Spark Capital; Andreessen Horowitz | $50M | $550M | Descript is an AI-powered audio and video editing platform founded in 2017 by former Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, enabling text-based editing and other creative tools. The company raised $50 million in a Series C round on October 27, 2022, led by the OpenAI Startup Fund with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital, and ex-Y Combinator partner Daniel Gross, bringing total funding to $100 million. A report from The Information cited in TechCrunch indicated the round valued Descript at around $550 million, more than double its prior $260 million valuation from January 2021, while another source pegged it at $500 million-plus. OpenAI Startup Fund COO Brad Lightcap highlighted Descript's potential to empower creators by extending video editing to new audiences through AI features. The investment reflects OpenAI's strategy to back early-stage AI companies via its fund, backed by partners including Microsoft. Descript counts major media outlets like NPR, VICE, The Washington Post, and The New York Times as customers from 2021, with expansion to universities, nonprofits, and public sector organizations by late 2022. The funding aims to accelerate AI integration into Descript's collaborative editing platform. |
| Feb 2021 | Series B | Spark Capital (lead) | $30M | $260M | Descript, a San Francisco-based audio and video editing platform founded in 2017 by former Groupon CEO Andrew Mason, raised $30 million in a Series B funding round on January 11, 2021, led by Nabeel Hyatt at Spark Capital, with participation from existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Redpoint Ventures, as well as individual investors including Alex Blumberg, Jack Conte, and Ev Williams. The round brought Descript's total funding to $50 million at that time. The company valued at $260 million post-Series B according to reports on the January 2021 valuation. Descript's flagship software uses AI-driven tools powered by automatic speech recognition from Google and Rev to simplify creating and sharing audio and video content, enabling text-based editing of media. Descript serves clients in journalism such as The New York Times, Al Jazeera, NPR, iHeartMedia, VICE, and The Washington Post, with expanding use cases in marketing, sales, customer support, user research, and online learning. The company reported strong customer growth and expansion into full video editing in 2020, positioning it as a tool for both creatives like podcasters and vloggers and business storytellers. Funds from the Series B were intended to grow the team and build next-generation video and audio editing features. This Series B preceded a Series C in November 2022, where Descript raised $50 million led by the OpenAI Startup Fund, valuing the company at around $550 million, more than double the January 2021 figure, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital, and others, bringing total funding to $100 million. |
| Sep 2019 | Series A | Andreessen Horowitz (lead); Redpoint (lead) | $15M | - | Descript, founded by Andrew Mason, announced a Series A funding round of $15 million on September 18, 2019, led by Andreessen Horowitz and Redpoint Ventures. The platform enables users to edit audio and video content using text-based editing, with AI features including voice cloning and automated editing capabilities. The funding was intended to support business expansion and hiring as Descript grew its presence in the audio and video editing market. Post-money valuation and revenue metrics for the Series A round were not publicly disclosed at the time. |
| Dec 2017 | Seed | Andreessen Horowitz (lead) | $5M | - | Descript is an audio and video editing platform founded in 2017 by Andrew Mason, the former CEO of Groupon. The company was spun out of Detour, an earlier audio-focused venture that Mason had founded and which Bose eventually acquired. Descript's core innovation centers on what the company calls Audio Word Processing, enabling podcasters and content creators to edit audio files with unprecedented ease by treating speech like text that can be edited directly. On December 12, 2017, Andreessen Horowitz led a $5 million seed funding round as the company was being established as an independent entity. The funding supported Descript's initial development and market entry into the podcasting and audio editing space. By September 2019, the company had demonstrated sufficient traction to raise an additional $15 million Series A round from Andreessen Horowitz and Redpoint Ventures, during which it also acquired Lyrebird, a Montreal-based AI voice technology company, to enhance its audio editing capabilities with the new Overdub feature. |
Who has invested in Descript?
5 investors have backed Descript across its funding rounds, including Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, Redpoint, Daniel Gross and OpenAI.
Lead investors include OpenAI, Spark Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Redpoint.
Descript Investors
| Investor | HQ | Rounds | Role | First check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco, CA | 3 | Lead | Dec 2017 | |
| San Francisco, CA | 2 | Lead | Sep 2019 | |
| San Francisco, CA | 2 | Lead | Feb 2021 | |
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Start Free TrialAcquisitions by Descript
Descript has acquired 2 companies to date.
Last acquisition by Descript was on August 14th 2023. Descript acquired SquadCast.fm for undisclosed valuation.
Latest Acquisitions by Descript
| Description | SquadCast.fm is a remote podcast recording platform capturing studio-quality audio at 48kHz/24-bit from anywhere via WebRTC. Founded in 2017 in Vancouver, it serves 100,000 podcasters including Joe Rogan Network shows, with automatic backups to Dropbox and RSS feeds. SquadCast reduces latency to 20ms and removes echo via AI noise suppression. The service integrates with Descript and Libsyn for editing and distribution. | Lyrebird is a Montreal-based speech synthesis company emerging from MILA lab research. It supplies APIs for real-time voice cloning and text-to-speech in 20 languages, used by developers in gaming and virtual assistants. The platform generates voices from 10-second samples with 95% naturalness scores. |
| HQ Country | |  |
| HQ City | Wilmington, DE | Montreal |
| Deal Date | 14 Aug 2023 | 18 Sep 2019 |
| Valuation | undisclosed | undisclosed |
| EV/Revenue | ||
| EV/EBITDA | ||
This data is available for Pro users. Sign up to see all Descript acquisitions and their M&A valuation multiples. Start Free Trial | ||
Descript Competitors
Descript competitors include listed companies like Net Insight and Haivision Systems, and private ones like Pixellot, Bitmovin, Cloudinary and ElevenLabs.
| Company | HQ | Status | Revenue | EBITDA | Valuation | Revenue Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Petah Tikva | Private | $50M | - | $500M | 10.0x | |
| San Francisco, CA | Private | - | - | $127M | - | |
 Cloudinary | San Jose, CA | Private | $100M | - | $2B | 20.0x |
 Sweden | Publicly listed | $53M | $8M | $113M | 2.2x | |
| Canada | Publicly listed | $99M | $5M | $72M | 0.7x | |
 Warsaw | Private | $500M | - | $11B | 22.0x |
Descript Public Comps
Descript is still privately-owned, but its public comps include EVS Broadcast Equipment, Vista Group, Agora, Hengxin Shambala Culture, Pexip, Streamwide, Safie, Kaltura, Vecima Networks and Sumavision.
| Last FY | EV/Revenue | EV/EBITDA | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | EBITDA | Last FY | LTM | 2027E | Last FY | LTM | 2027E | |
| $240M | $66M | 1.6x | 1.4x | 5.7x | 5.6x | |||
| $94M | $5M | 4.2x | 3.8x | 85.8x | 20.8x | |||
| $141M | $3M | 0.7x | 0.6x | 35.2x | 1382.0x | |||
| $58M | ($44M) | 5.0x | - | (6.8x) | - | |||
| $118M | $29M | 6.6x | 5.7x | 26.6x | 18.6x | |||
| $30M | $16M | 8.6x | 8.2x | 15.8x | 14.0x | |||
| $122M | $2M | 1.8x | 1.5x | 119.5x | - | |||
| $181M | ($5M) | 1.3x | 1.2x | (43.5x) | 13.4x | |||
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Common questions about Descript
| When was Descript founded? | Descript was founded in 2017. |
| Where is Descript headquartered? | Descript is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, United States. |
| Is Descript publicly listed? | No, Descript is a private, VC-backed company. |
| What is Descript's valuation? | Descript was last valued at $550M in its Series C in October 2022. |
| How much funding has Descript raised? | Descript has raised $100M across 4 funding rounds. |
| What was Descript's last funding round? | Descript's last funding round was a $50M Series C in October 2022, led by OpenAI. |
| Who are Descript's investors? | Descript's investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint, Spark Capital, Daniel Gross and OpenAI. |
| What is Descript's revenue? | Descript's latest recorded revenue is $100M (October 2022). |
| What is Descript's revenue multiple? | Descript's latest valuation implies a 5.5x revenue multiple ($550M valuation on $100M of revenue). |
| Which companies are comparable to Descript? | Companies comparable to Descript include Pixellot, Bitmovin, Cloudinary, Net Insight, Haivision Systems and ElevenLabs. |
| How many companies has Descript acquired? | Descript has acquired 2 companies, including SquadCast.fm and Lyrebird. |
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