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ElevenLabs raises $500M from Sequioia at a $11 billion valuation | TechCrunch
Voice AI company ElevenLabs said today it raised $500 million in a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital, which was an investor in the startup's last secondary round through a tender. Sequoia partner Andrew Reed is joining the company's board. The startup is now valued at $11 billion, more than three times its valuation in its last round in January 2025. Earlier in the year, the Financial Times reported that the startup was looking to raise at that valuation. The company said that existing investor a16z quadrupled its investment amount, and ICONIQ, which led the last round, tripled it. Some prior investors, like BroadLight, NFDG, Valor Capital, AMP Coalition, and Smash Capital, also joined the round. New investors for the funding included Lightspeed Venture Partners, Evantic Capital, BOND. ElevenLabs said that it will disclose some investors later in February, which might be strategic partners. The company has raised over $781 million to date. It said that it will use the funding for research and product development, along with expansion in international markets like India, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, and Mexico. The company's co-founder, Mati Staniszewski, indicated that ElevenLabs might work on agents beyond voice and incorporate video. In January, the company announced a partnership with LTX to produce audio-to-video content. "The intersection of models and products is critical - and our team has proven, time and again, how to translate research into real-world experiences. This funding helps us go beyond voice alone to transform how we interact with technology altogether. We plan to expand our Creative offering - helping creators combine our best-in-class audio with video and Agents - enabling businesses to build agents that can talk, type, and take action," he said in a statement. The company has seen good growth momentum as it closed the year at $330 million ARR. In an interview with Bloomberg earlier this year, Staniszewski said that it took ElevenLabs five months to reach from $200 million to $300 million in ARR. Voice AI model providers are an attractive target for investors and big tech companies. In January, rival Deepgram raised $130 million from AVP at a $1.3 billion valuation. Meanwhile, Google hired top talent from voice model company Hume AI, including CEO Alan Cowen.
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AI Startup ElevenLabs More Than Triples Valuation to $11 Billion
ElevenLabs, a startup using artificial intelligence to create a wide range of realistic voices, has more than tripled its valuation from a year ago to $11 billion in a fundraising round. The company is raising $500 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital, with investors Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq also participating, ElevenLabs said in a statement on Wednesday. Sequoia partner Andrew Reed will join the board. ElevenLabs plans to use the funds to build out its technology, including a platform enabling its enterprise customers to use conversational agents for customer support, training, sales and other functions, which Chief Executive Officer Mati Staniszewski called an important growth engine. The company is also expanding internationally in more than a dozen cities in the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe. It's struck partnerships with businesses including Deutsch Telekom AG, Deliveroo Plc, Revolut and the Ukrainian government, Staniszewski said in a post on LinkedIn. Lightspeed Venture Partners, Evantic Capital, and tech investment firm BOND joined the round as new investors. Additional investor participation may be disclosed later this month. The company last raised funds in early 2025 at a $3.3 billion valuation, though in a sign of keen investor appetite, it allowed employees to sell shares at a $6.6 billion valuation last year. Tech investors continue to pour funds into companies associated with AI, from applications to data centers. Anthropic, which makes the Claude large language model, is working on a secondary deal to let some employees sell shares at a $350 billion valuation at the same time as it pursues a funding round that could reach more than $20 billion. Staniszewski founded ElevenLabs with Piotr Dabkowski, an ex-Google machine learning engineer. The two were inspired by the poorly dubbed Hollywood films they grew up watching together in Poland, working on a technology that could be used to realistically narrate everything from movies to audiobooks and online lessons. Its voice-cloning capabilities ran into early trouble after it was adopted by scammers and used to create deepfakes, pushing managers to crack down more aggressively on users that abused the AI. One user was suspended in 2024 for creating an audio deepfake of former US President Joe Biden urging people not to vote in the New Hampshire primary.
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ElevenLabs secures $11 billion valuation in latest funding round
Feb 4 (Reuters) - AI voice generation firm ElevenLabs said on Wednesday it had secured an $11 billion valuation after raising $500 million in its latest funding round, signaling strong investor enthusiasm for the startup's prospects. The latest round, led by Sequoia Capital, more than triples the company's $3.3 billion valuation from January 2025, when ElevenLabs raised $180 million. The Series D funding drew new investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners and Evantic Capital, along with existing backers Andreessen Horowitz and ICONIQ. Founded by Piotr Dabkowski and CEO Mati Staniszewski in 2022, London-based ElevenLabs builds AI tools, including a platform that turns text into realistic speech. It plans to use proceeds from the funding to fuel its international expansion and further research on emotional conversational models and dubbing. The industry has seen a gush of investors racing to pump billions into AI firms, hoping to capitalize on the wider adoption of the disruptive technology across sectors. "We plan to expand our Creative offering...enabling businesses to build agents that can talk, type and take action," Staniszewski said in a statement. The funding comes as ElevenLabs benefits from the viral popularity of the OpenClaw ecosystem, where users integrate the company's voice models to build self-hosted personal AI agents. ElevenLabs generated over $330 million in annual recurring revenue in 2025. Staniszewski hopes to double that figure this year, he told the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news. Reporting by Utkarsh Shetti and Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
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Nvidia-backed AI voice startup ElevenLabs hits $11 billion valuation in fresh fundraise, as it eyes IPO
'We can create amazing experiences with big music labels', says ElevenLabs CEO Founded in 2022, the London-based company initially developed AI text-to-speech models, before expanding into areas such as speech-to-text, sound effects, dubbing, music and conversation. It sells products enabling enterprises to deploy voice and chat agents, as well as a platform for brands and creators to generate and localise audio, used by the likes of publisher Time and chip giant Nvidia. Tech giants like Meta and Salesforce use its voice infrastructure to develop products and experiences, ElevenLabs said. The company closed 2025 with over $330 million in annual recurring revenue, it said, driven by enterprise adoption by companies including Deutsche Telekom and Revolut. "This funding helps us go beyond voice alone to transform how we interact with technology altogether," said cofounder Mati Staniszewski in a statement, adding that the company was building towards an IPO. He added that the company intended to expand its offering to creators, "enabling businesses to build agents that can talk, type, and take action." ElevenLabs said it would continue international expansion. It has offices across Europe, as well as in Brazil, Mexico, India, South Korea, Japan and the U.S.
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ElevenLabs hit $11bn valuation with $500m series D funding round
From left ElevenLabs co-founders Piotr Dąbkowski and Mati Staniszewski. Image: ElevenLabs Once somewhat of an outcast in Hollywood, today ElevenLabs counts some big stars on its roster, and it has just raised a $500m series D round. ElevenLabs has raised $500m in a Series D funding round led by Sequoia Capital with partner Andrew Reed joining the board. Existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq participated, with new investors coming on board including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Evantic Capital and Bond. The new round gives ElevenLabs an $11bn valuation, more than tripling its valuation in the space of a year. ElevenLabs started out in 2022, developing a human-like AI text to speech model that got it into hot water in the early days with various Hollywood stars like Emma Watson. Voice actors took them to court at the time and ElevenLabs subsequently settled the lawsuit. These days some of Hollywood's elite are fully on board. In November 2025 it launched its Iconic Marketplace, adding actors Michael Caine and Matthew McConaughey to its roster. Having been burnt early on, the company today describes Iconic Marketplace as solving "a key ethical challenge in AI-driven media creation by enabling the ethical sourcing and licensing of some of the world's most recognisable voices". "We started by building a voice that could sound human - and we did," said said Piotr Dabkowski, co-founder of ElevenLabs. "Today we are building foundational models across the full audio stack - text to speech, transcription, music, dubbing and conversational models with a world-leading research team." "This funding helps us go beyond voice alone to transform how we interact with technology altogether. We plan to expand our Creative offering - helping creators combine our best-in-class audio with video and Agents." ElevenLabs says the funding will help it to continue its international expansion across London, New York, San Francisco, Warsaw, Dublin, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Bengaluru, Sydney, São Paulo, Berlin, Paris and Mexico City, where they plan to have "go-to-market teams" to support enterprise adoption. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.
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Voice AI startup ElevenLabs more than triples valuation in $500M round - SiliconANGLE
Voice AI startup ElevenLabs more than triples valuation in $500M round ElevenLabs Inc., a startup that develops artificial intelligence models optimized to generate and transcribe speech, has raised $500 million in funding. Sequoia Capital led the Series D investment. It was joined by Andreessen Horowitz, Iconiq, Lightspeed and several others. ElevenLabs said today that the cash infusion values it at $11 billion, more than triple the $3.3 billion the company was worth last January. The valuation jump is a reflection of the AI provider's sales growth. ElevenLabs, which was founded in 2022, is generating more than $330 million in annualized revenue from a customer base that includes Meta Platforms Inc., Nvidia Corp. and other major tech firms. The graphics card maker is also an investor. ElevenLabs' newest AI model, Eleven v3, debuted last month. It can generate synthetic speech in more than 70 languages and simulate non-verbal reactions. Users interact with the model by entering a written script, optionally with pieces of data called audio tags that make it possible to customize the output in fine-grained ways. ElevenLabs also offers more than a half dozen other models. There's Eleven v2.5 Turbo, a faster alternative to Eleven v3 that can generate speech in near-real-time. It's geared towards applications such as customer support assistants that require the ability to quickly respond to user prompts. Another ElevenLabs model, Scribe v2, is a speech transcription algorithm that understands more than 90 languages. The company provides its models through an application programming interface that developers can embed into their software. The algorithms are also accessible via two cloud services called ElevenAgents and ElevenCreative. According to ElevenLabs, they ease many of the chores involves in equipping an application with speech processing features. ElevenAgents enables companies to create AI voice agents for tasks such as answering customer support requests. A library of more than 400 connectors can be used to integrate an agent with an organization's backend systems. Additionally, there's a drag-and-drop interface for customizing AI behavior. An electronics maker, for example, could specify when a support agent should route requests to a human help desk representative. ElevenCreative, ElevenLabs' other cloud service, is optimized for content generation use cases. Marketers can use it to create background music for commercials. Integrations with third-party AI models enable customers to generate images and videos with text prompts. "We plan to expand our Creative offering - helping creators combine our best-in-class audio with video and Agents - enabling businesses to build agents that can talk, type, and take action," said ElevenLabs co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Mati Staniszewski.
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ElevenLabs raises $500M at $11 billion valuation led by Sequoia
Voice AI company ElevenLabs has raised $500 million in a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital, which also participated in the company's last secondary round through a tender offer. As part of the deal, Sequoia partner Andrew Reed is joining the company's board. The latest financing values ElevenLabs at $11 billion, more than three times the valuation it received in its previous funding round in January 2025. Earlier reporting indicated that the company had been targeting this valuation. Existing investor Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) increased its exposure in the company by quadrupling its investment, and Iconiq, which led the prior round, tripled its own commitment. Several previous backers returned for the new round, and a group of new investors also joined. ElevenLabs said that it plans to disclose additional investors later in February, noting that some of them may be strategic partners. With the new round, the company has raised more than $781 million to date. The company plans to use the capital for research and product development and to expand its presence in international markets including India, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, and Mexico. Co-founder Mati Staniszewski said ElevenLabs is considering products that extend beyond voice, including work that incorporates video. In January, the company announced a partnership with LTX to produce audio-to-video content. Staniszewski said in a statement that the company aims to connect model development and product execution by turning research into deployed experiences. He added that the new funding will support an expansion of ElevenLabs' Creative offering, which is intended to help creators combine its audio tools with video and agents, and to enable businesses to build agents that can talk, type, and take action. ElevenLabs ended the year with $330 million in annual recurring revenue. According to an earlier interview with Bloomberg, the company took about five months to grow from $200 million to $300 million in annual recurring revenue. Investor and industry interest in voice AI model providers has been strong. In January, rival Deepgram raised $130 million from AVP at a $1.3 billion valuation and acquired a Y Combinator-backed AI startup. Around the same time, Google hired talent from voice model company Hume AI, including its CEO Alan Cowen.
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Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski Triple ElevenLabs' Valuation to $11 Billion, Solidifying Their Grip on A.I. Voice
Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski's ElevenLabs is everywhere. Matthew McConaughey uses ElevenLabs to power the Spanish-language version of his personal newsletter. Masterclass uses ElevenLabs to give A.I. versions of its instructors a voice. Even the Ukrainian government uses ElevenLabs to add audio interfaces to public services. Silicon Valley, of course, has also taken notice of the venture's fast-spreading influence. Today (Feb. 4), Staniszewski and Dabkowski announced that their venture has raised $500 million in a Series D round, led by Sequoia, with big-name backers like Andreessen Horowitz, Iconic, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Evantic Capital and BOND. The round gives ElevenLabs a valuation of $11 billion, a more than threefold increase from the $3.3 billion figure it received last year, and brings its total funding to $781 million. Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter Sign Up Thank you for signing up! By clicking submit, you agree to our <a href="http://observermedia.com/terms">terms of service</a> and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime. See all of our newsletters The Palantir (Staniszewski) and Google (Dabkowski) alums launched the company in 2022 with a focus on text-to-speech A.I. models and have since expanded to include features such as conversational technology, dubbing and sound effects. Staniszewski and Dabkowski are among the most dominant players in A.I. today, and ElevenLabs is the indisputable authority in A.I. voice generation -- a submarket of the A.I. industry expected to balloon from $4.1 billion in 2025 to $20.7 billion by 2031. ElevenLabs closed 2025 with more than $330 million in annual recurring revenue -- 10 percent above last year's $300 million goal. With fresh funding in hand, Staniszewski and Dabkowski will bolster ElevenLabs' roster of conversational A.I. agents, making the assistants (used by the likes of Square and Revolut) faster, more interactive, and more expressive. Duolingo, Nvidia and Time Magazine use ElevenLabs' ElevenCreative platform to generate and localize audio across more than 70 languages. Meta, Epic Games, Salesforce and Harvey use ElevenLabs' voice infrastructure to enable developers to build products and experiences. Enterprise isn't the venture's only source of revenue. In a surprising turn for an industry riddled with concerns about A.I. creep, Hollywood has shown growing interest in ElevenLabs' Iconic Voice Marketplace, a two-sided platform that facilitates authorized use of A.I.-generated versions of celebrity voices. McConaughey (who has an equity stake in the company) and Michael Caine were among the first actors to license their voices to ElevenLabs and have become vocal proponents of the marketplace, which now includes the voices of Maya Angelou, Alan Turing, Liza Minelli and Art Garfunkel. Staniszewski and Dabkowski aren't just entering new industries; they are expanding ElevenLabs into new locations beyond their headquarters in London and New York. To maintain its lead over rivals like Hume, WaveForms and PlayAI -- the latter two were snapped up by Meta last year -- ElevenLabs is eyeing offices in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America, and plans to eventually go public. Last year, Staniszewski said ElevenLabs hopes to be IPO-ready in the next five years, "When we started ElevenLabs, we couldn't have imagined the scale and impact we've reached today, with an incredible team doing the best work of their lives," Staniszewski, who also serves as CEO of ElevenLabs, said in a statement. "Yet we stay hungry, knowing how early this space is, as we build toward IPO and beyond."
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ElevenLabs raises $500 million at $11 billion valuation, WSJ reports
Voice-cloning AI startup ElevenLabs has secured an $11 billion valuation after raising $500 million in its latest funding round. The latest round more than triples the company's $3.3 billion valuation from January 2025, when ElevenLabs raised $180 million. Voice-cloning AI startup ElevenLabs has secured an $11 billion valuation after raising $500 million in its latest funding round, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The company generated $330 million in annual recurring revenue last year, with hopes to double that figure this year, CEO Mati Staniszewski told the Journal. The latest round more than triples the company's $3.3 billion valuation from January 2025, when ElevenLabs raised $180 million. The Series D funding was led by Sequoia Capital, the Journal said on Wednesday.
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ElevenLabs Lands $500 Million to Expand AI Voice Platform | PYMNTS.com
By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. The funding round was led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq Capital. Earlier last week, PYMNTS reported that the startup raised $180 million in a Series C funding round. Founded in 2022 and based in London, ElevenLabs specializes in generative AI voice and speech-synthesis technologies that produce highly realistic voice output for a range of applications, including conversational agents, customer service automation and content creation. The company first gained attention for its ability to generate nuanced, human-like audio from text input and has rapidly expanded its product suite to include voice agents and AI music generation tools. ElevenLabs' latest funding round marks a significant increase in valuation compared with previous raises. The company has also broadened its customer base to include major corporations and government entities, according to a Wednesday report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The startup's AI voice systems are being used by companies such as Deutsche Telekom and Deliveroo, where they support functions like customer support automation and employee onboarding, according to the WSJ. The government of Ukraine has also employed its tools in educational and public engagement initiatives. The funding follows a period of scrutiny and controversy earlier in ElevenLabs' history. After its 2023 product launch, some voice actors and industry groups criticized the technology for its potential to clone voices without consent, and the company faced legal challenges over misuse of its tools. In response, ElevenLabs has pursued licensing agreements with public figures and celebrities, including actor Michael Caine, whose voice has been officially licensed for use in generative applications, and Matthew McConaughey, who has worked with the company to translate his voice into Spanish for distribution. ElevenLabs has also developed a voice licensing marketplace that allows brands and rights holders to license iconic voices for authorized use, the WSJ reported. The company recently expanded into AI music generation, releasing a collaborative album designed to showcase its audio technologies. The executive leadership said the new funding will support continued expansion of its AI voice and conversational platform, as well as partnerships across enterprise and entertainment sectors. CEO Mati Staniszewski told WSJ that ElevenLabs aims to grow into a broader conversational AI platform that delivers voice-enabled experiences for business and consumer users alike.
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ElevenLabs raises $500M at $11B valuation
AI voice startup ElevenLabs has raised $500M in a Series D funding round led by Sequoia Capital, valuing the company at $11B, according to CEO Mati Staniszewski. Andreessen Horowitz and investment firm Iconiq also participated in the new funding round, Staniszewski Rapid enterprise adoption, significant ARR growth, product innovations, and investor interest contributed to ElevenLabs' high valuation and accelerated growth. ElevenLabs plans to expand research, enhance products, and establish go-to-market teams across international cities to support further enterprise adoption. ElevenLabs upgraded its voice agents with faster, more expressive capabilities, launched a voice licensing marketplace and AI music generator, and released an AI-produced music album.
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Voice AI company ElevenLabs has secured $500 million in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital, pushing its valuation to $11 billion—more than three times its $3.3 billion valuation from January 2025. The London-based startup closed 2025 with over $330 million in annual recurring revenue and plans to expand beyond voice into AI agents that can talk, type, and take action while pursuing an IPO.
ElevenLabs announced it raised $500 million in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital, with partner Andrew Reed joining the company's board
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. The AI voice startup now carries an $11 billion valuation, marking a dramatic surge from its $3.3 billion valuation in January 20253
. This represents the company's Series D funding round and brings its total capital raised to over $781 million since its 2022 founding1
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Source: Observer
The Sequoia Capital led funding attracted significant participation from both existing and new investors. Andreessen Horowitz quadrupled its investment amount, while ICONIQ, which led the previous round, tripled its stake
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. Lightspeed Venture Partners, Evantic Capital, and BOND joined as new investors, alongside prior backers including BroadLight, NFDG, Valor Capital, AMP Coalition, and Smash Capital1
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.Founded by Piotr Dabkowski and CEO Mati Staniszewski, the London-based company initially developed AI text-to-speech models before expanding into speech-to-text, sound effects, dubbing, music, and conversation
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. The company closed 2025 with over $330 million in annual recurring revenue, demonstrating rapid growth momentum1
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. In an earlier interview, Staniszewski revealed it took ElevenLabs just five months to climb from $200 million to $300 million in annual recurring revenue1
. The CEO told the Wall Street Journal he aims to double the current revenue figure this year3
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Source: Seeking Alpha
ElevenLabs plans to use the funding for research and product development, along with international market expansion in India, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, and Mexico
1
. The company is establishing go-to-market teams across London, New York, San Francisco, Warsaw, Dublin, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, Bengaluru, Sydney, São Paulo, Berlin, Paris, and Mexico City to support enterprise adoption5
. Co-founder Staniszewski indicated the company might work on AI agents development beyond voice and incorporate video, building on a January partnership with LTX to produce audio-to-video content1
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Source: ET
"The intersection of models and products is critical - and our team has proven, time and again, how to translate research into real-world experiences. This funding helps us go beyond voice alone to transform how we interact with technology altogether. We plan to expand our Creative offering - helping creators combine our best-in-class audio with video and Agents - enabling businesses to build agents that can talk, type, and take action," Staniszewski said
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.Related Stories
The company's growth has been fueled by enterprise adoption from major corporations including Deutsche Telekom, Deliveroo, Revolut, and the Ukrainian government
2
. Tech giants like Meta, Salesforce, and Nvidia use its voice infrastructure to develop products and experiences4
. The company sells products enabling enterprises to deploy voice and chat agents, as well as a platform for brands and creators to generate and localize audio, used by publisher Time and chip giant Nvidia4
. The funding comes as ElevenLabs benefits from the viral popularity of the OpenClaw ecosystem, where users integrate the company's voice models to build self-hosted personal AI agents3
.The company's voice cloning capabilities faced early challenges after being adopted by scammers to create deepfakes, prompting managers to crack down more aggressively on users who abused the generative AI technology
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. One user was suspended in 2024 for creating an audio deepfake of former US President Joe Biden urging people not to vote in the New Hampshire primary. After settling a lawsuit with voice actors, the company launched its Iconic Marketplace in November 2025, adding actors Michael Caine and Matthew McConaughey to its roster5
. Staniszewski confirmed the company is building towards an IPO4
. The industry has seen strong investor enthusiasm, with rival Deepgram raising $130 million from AVP at a $1.3 billion valuation in January, while Google hired top talent from voice model company Hume AI, including CEO Alan Cowen1
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