ElevenLabs Secures $180 Million in Series C Funding to Advance AI Voice Technology

ElevenLabs Raises $180M in Series C to Advance AI Voice Technology

This latest funding triples ElevenLabs' valuation to $3.3 billion, bringing its total funding to $281 million since its launch in 2022. AI audio company ElevenLabs has secured $180 million in Series C funding to enhance its voice technology, expand research, and develop new products that integrate speech into digital interactions. The investment round was co-led by a16z and ICONIQ Growth, with participation from investors like NEA, World Innovation Lab (WiL), Valor, Endeavor Catalyst Fund, and Lunate. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Smash Capital, SV Angel, NFDG, and BroadLight Capital have also increased their support. This latest funding triples ElevenLabs' valuation to $3.3 billion, bringing its total funding to $281 million since its launch in 2022. The company is also partnering with strategic investors such as Deutsche Telekom, LG Technology Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, and RingCentral Ventures. Since its 2023 platform launch, ElevenLabs has helped generate over 1,000 years of audio and has been adopted by employees at over 60% of Fortune 500 companies. Last year, ElevenLabs expanded its ElevenReader app with GenFM, a feature that converts documents into personalised AI-generated podcasts. GenFM transforms PDFs, articles, ebooks, and documents into audio content with AI-driven co-hosts. The feature allows for quick audio generation across 32 languages, supporting diverse use cases like commuting, studying, language learning, and multitasking, by transforming text into engaging, spoken-word content with adaptive summaries and AI-generated narration. The list of notable clients includes NVIDIA, ESPN, The Washington Post, Chess.com, Paradox Interactive, and Aston Martin Aramco F1. ElevenLabs is dedicated to making AI voice technology more inclusive through its Impact Program, which provides free access to its technology for organisations in accessibility, education, and culture. Over 1,000 individuals with speech impairments have regained their voices using ElevenLabs' AI, with key partnerships including Bridging Voice and The Scott Morgan Foundation, which support individuals with ALS. In the cultural space, the company collaborated with KADIST and the Centre Pompidou in Paris to bring AI-generated plays to life. As part of its global expansion, ElevenLabs is establishing an R&D hub in Warsaw to foster AI talent in Central and Eastern Europe while also focusing on Indic language expansion in India, ensuring broader accessibility and engagement with its AI-powered solutions. ElevenLabs aims to advance AI voice technology further, ensuring more expressive and controllable AI voices while improving AI safety. As CEO Mati Staniszewski explains, "Speech is how we naturally communicate. This funding moves us closer to a world where digital interactions happen by voice - fluid, natural, and as effortless as a conversation." The company is also scaling globally, working with partners in Asia, Latin America, and Europe to develop AI voice tools that reflect diverse languages, accents, and dialects. David George, general partner at a16z, emphasised ElevenLabs' role in shaping AI-powered voice interactions: "Voice is becoming a key part of how we interact with technology, and ElevenLabs is making it work at scale.

ElevenLabs Secures $180M in Series C to Revolutionize Digital Speech

Gaming: Inworld, Paradox Interactive, Magicave, Don't Nod, AMGI Studios ElevenLabs has partnered with major enterprises and institutions, while capitalizing on growing consumer demand. Since January 2023, creators have shared over 5,000 voices in ElevenLabs' Voice Library and earned more than $2 million in rewards. The company has also launched its Impact Program, offering its technology for free to organizations that can benefit from AI developments, partnering with 80 organizations across accessibility, education, and culture. ElevenLabs has worked with Bridging Voice and The Scott Morgan Foundation to provide AI voices to individuals with ALS, and over 1,000 individuals with speech impairments have reclaimed their voices through the program. In the cultural space, ElevenLabs partnered with KADIST and the Centre Pompidou in Paris to bring AI-generated plays to life. The company has also empowered communities in Norway and Pakistan through educational and entrepreneurial initiatives. ElevenLabs believes a local focus is key to making technology relevant, which is why it has expanded into Poland and India, to invest in AI talent and development. The new Warsaw R&D center will serve as a hub for CEE talent, while the India team focuses on extending Indic language coverage and AI programs. Digital interactions often fall short of being realistic or engaging. ElevenLabs pioneers solutions to make them seamless and expressive. One key effort is its Conversational AI tool, which, just two months after launch, has already enabled developers to build more than 250,000 conversational AI agents. Fortune 500 companies have also adopted ElevenLabs at scale, with employees at over 60% of them using its platform and API. ElevenLabs' models have localized more than 1 million hours of audio, read aloud 1 million hours of text from ebooks, PDFs, and news articles through ElevenReader, and produced more than 10 million sound effects. Together, these milestones represent 1,000 years of AI audio generated with ElevenLabs. At its core, ElevenLabs has always been, and will continue to be, an AI research company, with a focus on driving development in the AI audio space. CTO and TIME Magazine AI Top 100 Innovator, Piotr Dąbkowski, leads a research team focused on breakthroughs in AI audio generation. The company has grown from 30 to 120 employees in the past year, with its main hubs in London, New York, and Warsaw. ElevenLabs is on a mission to build the singular most comprehensive audio AI platform in the world, solve AI audio intelligence, and make all information accessible in any voice, language, and sound. The Series C funding will drive the next stage of AI audio, supporting research into more expressive and controllable voice AI, expanding tools for developers and businesses scaling globally, and strengthening AI safety. As ElevenLabs furthers its research, the company recognizes the need to build products that harness its innovations effectively and deploy them safely. As it heads into 2025, ElevenLabs is focused on making its AI audio platform more collaborative, increasing access to cutting-edge research, advancing its conversational AI agents, and expanding its tools and features to mobile for broader use and impact. The company is also focused on serving all languages, accents, and dialects across the world. It is expanding its reach and deepening its presence in regions like Asia, LATAM, and EMEA. The company is working with key partners, including strategic investors joining this funding round, to ensure that its technology has the necessary nuance. "Speech is how we naturally communicate. This funding moves us closer to a world where digital interactions happen by voice - fluid, natural, and as effortless as a conversation," says Mati Staniszewski, CEO of ElevenLabs. "Voice is becoming a key part of how we interact with technology, and ElevenLabs is making it work at scale. We're thrilled to continue to support their work in building the next generation of AI," said David George, general partner and head of a16z's Growth Fund. "We believe ElevenLabs is redefining the way we connect with digital environments, placing voice at the very heart of these transformative interactions. We are thrilled to partner with such an innovative team and contribute to their extraordinary journey to help reshape the future of voice technology," said Seth Pierrepont, General Partner at ICONIQ Growth.

AI Voice Startup ElevenLabs Secures USD 180 Million in Funding

The company has expanded into Poland and India to strengthen its AI talent and development teams. ElevenLabs has raised USD 180 million in Series C funding, bringing its total funding to USD 281 million since its 2022 launch. The round was co-led by a16z and ICONIQ Growth, with participation from new investors like NEA, World Innovation Lab (WiL), Valor, Endeavor Catalyst Fund and Lunate. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Smash Capital, SV Angel, NFDG, and BroadLight Capital are also increasing their support, the AI Voice startup said in a statement on January 30, 2025. Also Read: Norwood Systems Launches AI Voice Platform for Operators with Microsoft Headquartered in London, ElevenLabs plans to use the funding to expand its research into more expressive and controllable voice AI, create new products and expand its tools for developers and businesses. This new funding values the company at USD 3.3 billion, a threefold increase from its valuation a year ago. ElevenLabs specialises in AI-powered speech technology and has introduced tools like Conversational AI for real-time, natural speech in AI agents, ElevenReader (a mobile app for converting written content into audio), and a Sound Effects Model for generating audio effects. It also offers features like voice design, dubbing, and monetisation platforms for voice actors. Its products serve a range of sectors, including customer support, gaming, education, and accessibility. Some of its partners include companies such as Nvidia, Perplexity, Synthesia, HeyGen, EliseAI, Wondershare, Kapwing, Parloa, Vapi, ESPN, The New Yorker, and more. Also Read: Vapi Raises USD 20 Million to Bring AI Voice Agents to Enterprises "This funding moves us closer to a world where digital interactions happen by voice - fluid, natural, and as effortless as a conversation," said Mati Staniszewski, CEO of ElevenLabs. "Voice is becoming a key part of how we interact with technology, and ElevenLabs is making it work at scale. We're thrilled to continue to support their work in building the next generation of AI," said David George, general partner and head of a16z's Growth Fund. "We believe ElevenLabs is redefining the way we connect with digital environments, placing voice at the very heart of these transformative interactions. We are thrilled to partner with such an innovative team and contribute to their extraordinary journey to help reshape the future of voice technology," said Seth Pierrepont, General Partner at ICONIQ Growth. Also Read: SoundHound Brings Hindi Voice AI Experience to Kia Vehicles in India ElevenLabs added that it broadened its product lineup by adding tools for speech generation, voice design, sound effects and AI-driven dubbing in 32 languages in 2024. The company believes that a local focus is key to making technology relevant, which is why it has expanded into Poland and India, to invest in AI talent and development. "The new Warsaw R&D center will serve as a hub for CEE talent, while the India team focuses on extending Indic language coverage and AI programs," the company said.

ElevenLabs Raises $180 Million to Make AI Audio 'More Expressive and Controllable' | PYMNTS.com

ElevenLabs raised $180 million in a Series C funding round to continue the development of its artificial intelligence (AI) audio technology that is used in content creation, customer support, gaming, education, accessibility and other applications. The company will use the new funding to research "more expressive and controllable" voice AI, expand tools for developers and businesses scaling globally, and strengthen AI safety, it said in a Thursday (Jan. 30) blog post. "This funding moves us closer to a world where digital interactions happen by voice -- fluid, natural and as effortless as a conversation," ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski said in the post. Since launching its platform in 2023, ElevenLabs has refined its voice AI models and added tools that enable real-time, natural speech for AI agents, speech generation, voice design, sound effects and dubbing in 32 languages, according to the post. "Voice is becoming a key part of how we interact with technology, and ElevenLabs is making it work at scale," David George, general partner and head of a16z's Growth Fund, said in the post. This funding round values ElevenLabs at $3.3 billion, according to the release, a figure that is three times the size of the $1.1 billion valuation seen in its January 2024 funding round. Fifty-four percent of consumers would prefer voice technology in the future because it is faster than typing or using a touchscreen, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report, "How Consumers Want to Live in the Voice Economy." The report also found that 27% of consumers had used a voice-activated device or speaker in the previous 12 months and that 22% of Generation Z consumers were "highly willing" to pay $10 per month to use a voice assistant as smart and reliable as a real person. SoundHound AI said in November that its voice AI solutions had been deployed by seven of the 20 quick-service restaurants and were being used for drive-thru, phone ordering, kiosks, mobile apps and for supporting their staff.

Voice AI Startup ElevenLabs Hit $3.3 Billion Valuation After Funding Round

ElevenLabs said on Thursday it has raised $180 million in a new funding round that triples the voice cloning artificial intelligence startup's valuation to $3.3 billion. The Series C funding round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq Growth, with participation from additional new investors NEA, World Innovation Lab, Valor, Endeavor Catalyst Fund and Lunate. Investors are racing to fund generative AI startups after the meteoric success of OpenAI's ChatGPT to capitalize on the commercial potential of AI-powered products. Headquartered in London, ElevenLabs aims to use the funding to expand its research into more expressive and controllable voice AI, create new products and expand its tools for developers and businesses.

A.I. Voice Startup ElevenLabs Triples Valuation to $3.3B in One Year

Fresh off a $180 million funding round, the startup has tripled its valuation in just a year. What do Nvidia (NVDA), The New Yorker, Chess.com and New York City Mayor Eric Adams have in common? They are all clients ElevenLabs, a startup that generates realistic audio with the help of A.I. Co-founded in 2022 by former Google (GOOGL) engineer Piotr Dabhowski and former Palantir strategist Mateusz Staniszewski, the London-based company has made waves in Silicon Valley for its voice cloning capabilities. Over the past year, the startup has more than tripled its valuation to a whopping $3.3 billion after a closing a $180 million round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq Growth, the company announced yesterday (Jan. 30). 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 capital will be used to expand ElevenLabs' capabilities and make its A.I. voices more "expressive and controllable," the company said. "Speech is how we naturally communicate. This funding moves us closer to a world where digital interactions happen by voice -- fluid, natural and as effortless as a conversation," said Staniszewski, who serves as CEO of ElevenLabs, in a statement. ElevenLabs' products include tools that build interactive voice agents, generate custom voices or sound effects via text prompts and help voice actors monetize A.I.-generated audio. According to the company, its technology has been embraced by workers at more than 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies. Customers range from peer A.I. companies like Perplexity AI, which uses ElevenLabs to generate podcasts summarizing the news, to publishers like The Washington Post and The Atlantic, which utilize the technology to create audio versions of stories. Last year, New York City Mayor Eric Adams tapped the startup to contact New Yorkers with multilingual robocalls. The rise of A.I.-generated voices hasn't been without controversy. Last year, audio experts claimed that technology from ElevenLabs was used to generate robocalls mimicking the voice of former President Joe Biden to voters in New Hampshire during the Presidential campaign. ElevenLabs subsequently suspended the account behind the fake robocalls. The company said its latest funding will be used to bolster A.I. safety and ensure its products are deployed without harm. To date, ElevenLabs has raised $281 million in venture funding. Its top backers include Sequoia Capital, Smash Capital, Broadlight Capital, SV Angel, NFDG and Salesforce's venture arm. The A.I. voice industry generated $3.5 billion in revenue in 2023. That figure is expected to exceed $21 billion by the end of the decade, according to data from Grand View Research. Other notable A.I. voice startups include: WaveForms raised $40 million in December; Cartesia raised $27 million in December; Play AI raised $21 million in November; Hume raised $50 million in March 2024.

ElevenLabs raises $180M Series C to be the voice of the digital world

ElevenLabs raises $180M in Series C funding to advance its AI audio technology, expand its research, and develop new products that make voice and sound central to digital interactions.In just two years, ElevenLabs' millions of users have generated 1,000 years of audio content and the company's tools have been adopted by employees at over 60% of Fortune 500 companies.The funding will drive the next stage of AI audio, supporting research into more expressive and controllable voice AI, expanding tools for developers and businesses scaling globally, and strengthening AI safety. ElevenLabs has raised $180 million in a Series C funding round to make speech the new standard for digital interaction. The round was co-led by a16z and ICONIQ Growth, with additional new investors NEA, World Innovation Lab (WiL), Valor, Endeavor Catalyst Fund and Lunate. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Smash Capital, SV Angel, NFDG, BroadLight Capital are also increasing their support. The company is further partnering with strategic investors, including Deutsche Telekom, LG Technology Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, and RingCentral Ventures. This latest funding values ElevenLabs at $3.3 billion, tripling its valuation from one year prior, and brings total funding to $281 million across four rounds since its founding in 2022. Retrospective Since launching its platform in January 2023, ElevenLabs has refined its voice AI models and introduced new products like Conversational AI, enabling real-time, natural speech for AI agents, and ElevenReader, a mobile app. In the past year alone, ElevenLabs has broadened its product lineup, adding tools for speech generation, voice design, sound effects, AI-powered dubbing in 32 languages, and more: Conversational AI. A tool for building custom, interactive voice agents for customer support, gaming, education, marketing, and more.Voice Design. A tool for generating custom voices from text descriptions.Sound Effects Model. A tool for generating sound effects from text descriptions, marking ElevenLabs' expansion into audio AI beyond voice applications. ElevenReader App. An iOS and Android mobile app that converts ebooks, PDFs, and news articles into audio, making content easy to consume on the go.Flash Model. The fastest voice model on the market, with 75ms model latency.Voice Library Payouts. A platform for voice actors and users to monetize their AI-generated voices. ElevenLabs recently surpassed $2 million in payouts.Dubbing Studio. A localization tool that translates and edits audio content while preserving the original voices. Together, these technologies are used by creators, developers, and businesses to power content creation, customer support, gaming, education, and accessibility, among others. ElevenLabs is proud to work with some of the world's leading companies and creators, among them: Technology: NVIDIA, Perplexity, Synthesia, HeyGen, EliseAI, Wondershare, Kapwing, invideo AI, rabbit, Cognigy, Retell AI, Vapi, ParloaMedia: Bertelsmann, ESPN, Aston Martin Aramco F1, Publicis, Star Sports, Lex Fridman, Andrew Huberman, FuturiEducation: Praktika, Chess.com, SchoolAI, Synthesis, ArticulatePublishing: TIME, The New Yorker, Harper Collins, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, StorytelGaming: Inworld, Paradox Interactive, Magicave, Don't Nod, AMGI Studios ElevenLabs has partnered with major enterprises and institutions, while capitalizing on growing consumer demand. Since January 2023, creators have shared over 5,000 voices in ElevenLabs' Voice Library and earned more than $2 million in rewards. The company has also launched its Impact Program, offering its technology for free to organizations that can benefit from AI developments, partnering with 80 organizations across accessibility, education, and culture. ElevenLabs has worked with Bridging Voice and The Scott Morgan Foundation to provide AI voices to individuals with ALS, and over 1,000 individuals with speech impairments have reclaimed their voices through the program. In the cultural space, ElevenLabs partnered with KADIST and the Centre Pompidou in Paris to bring AI-generated plays to life. The company has also empowered communities in Norway and Pakistan through educational and entrepreneurial initiatives. ElevenLabs believes a local focus is key to making technology relevant, which is why it has expanded into Poland and India, to invest in AI talent and development. The new Warsaw R&D center will serve as a hub for CEE talent, while the India team focuses on extending Indic language coverage and AI programs. Digital interactions often fall short of being realistic or engaging. ElevenLabs pioneers solutions to make them seamless and expressive. One key effort is its Conversational AI tool, which, just two months after launch, has already enabled developers to build more than 250,000 conversational AI agents. Fortune 500 companies have also adopted ElevenLabs at scale, with employees at over 60% of them using its platform and API. ElevenLabs' models have localized more than 1 million hours of audio, read aloud 1 million hours of text from ebooks, PDFs, and news articles through ElevenReader, and produced more than 10 million sound effects. Together, these milestones represent 1,000 years of AI audio generated with ElevenLabs. Mission and future plans At its core, ElevenLabs has always been, and will continue to be, an AI research company, with a focus on driving development in the AI audio space. CTO and TIME Magazine AI Top 100 Innovator, Piotr Dąbkowski, leads a research team focused on breakthroughs in AI audio generation. The company has grown from 30 to 120 employees in the past year, with its main hubs in London, New York, and Warsaw. ElevenLabs is on a mission to build the singular most comprehensive audio AI platform in the world, solve AI audio intelligence, and make all information accessible in any voice, language, and sound. The Series C funding will drive the next stage of AI audio, supporting research into more expressive and controllable voice AI, expanding tools for developers and businesses scaling globally, and strengthening AI safety. As ElevenLabs furthers its research, the company recognizes the need to build products that harness its innovations effectively and deploy them safely. As it heads into 2025, ElevenLabs is focused on making its AI audio platform more collaborative, increasing access to cutting-edge research, advancing its conversational AI agents, and expanding its tools and features to mobile for broader use and impact. The company is also focused on serving all languages, accents, and dialects across the world. It is expanding its reach and deepening its presence in regions like Asia, LATAM, and EMEA. The company is working with key partners, including strategic investors joining this funding round, to ensure that its technology has the necessary nuance. "Speech is how we naturally communicate. This funding moves us closer to a world where digital interactions happen by voice - fluid, natural, and as effortless as a conversation," says Mati Staniszewski, CEO of ElevenLabs. "Voice is becoming a key part of how we interact with technology, and ElevenLabs is making it work at scale. We're thrilled to continue to support their work in building the next generation of AI," said David George, general partner and head of a16z's Growth Fund. "We believe ElevenLabs is redefining the way we connect with digital environments, placing voice at the very heart of these transformative interactions. We are thrilled to partner with such an innovative team and contribute to their extraordinary journey to help reshape the future of voice technology," said Seth Pierrepont, General Partner at ICONIQ Growth. ElevenLabs is hiring across research, engineering, and product. For more information, visit elevenlabs.io/careers. About ElevenLabs builds AI audio tools for creators, media, and businesses, aiming to develop the leading AI audio platform, advance AI audio intelligence, and make information accessible in any voice, language, or sound. Our models generate ultra-realistic speech and sounds in 32 languages, supporting industries like publishing, entertainment, education, accessibility, and conversational AI. We develop our tools mindful of their impact, balancing safety with innovation to support practical and creative applications. ElevenLabs is incorporated in the United States, has a globally distributed team, and offices in London, New York, and Warsaw. Seth Pierrepont from ICONIQ Growth will be joining the ElevenLabs board, alongside Jennifer Li from a16z, and the company co-founders. Co-founders Mati Staniszewski is the CEO of ElevenLabs. He formerly worked at Palantir Technologies. Piotr Dabkowski is the CTO of ElevenLabs. He formerly worked at Google. Mati and Piotr are childhood best friends. AI Safety AI audio helps overcome language and communication barriers, paving the way for a more connected, creative, and productive world. It can also attract bad actors. Our mission is to build and deploy the best audio AI products while continuously improving safeguards to prevent their misuse.

ElevenLabs, the hot AI audio startup, confirms $180M in Series C funding at a $3.3B valuation | TechCrunch

ElevenLabs, one of the more popular startups working in the field AI audio, said Thursday that it has raised a Series C round of $180 million, valuing the company at $3.3 billion post-money. a16z and ICONIQ Growth are co-leading investment. Rumors of the fundraise were first reported by TechCrunch. The final numbers confirm some but not all of the details we previously reported (specifically, the overall size of the round is smaller than we had heard; the valuation and lead investors are the same). The funding will be used to continue building out ElevenLabs' audio tools and for business development. Mati Staniszewski, the CEO who co-founded the company with childhood friend Piotr Dabkowski, said in an interview that the startup is focusing its research on building audio AI models that are more expressive and have more control. Staniszewski added that the company is also focusing on "omni-models": combining text-based models with its audio models for multimodal interactions. There has been a frenzy of investor interest in ElevenLabs going back several months, on the back of two important currents. First, there has been a huge wave of hype around generative AI that has been catching a lot of companies in its wake. Second, ElevenLabs has emerged as a major player among those providing synthetic voice technology. Dozens of major publishers and content creators across verticals like media and gaming, as well as a number of other tech startups, are all using ElevenLabs' technology to power their voice and audio features. Unsurprisingly, that has translated into a very crowded funding round with a lot of prominent names. New investors in this Series C include NEA, World Innovation Lab (WiL), Valor, Endeavor Catalyst Fund, and Abu Dhabi investment firm Lunate. Past investors also participating include Sequoia Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Smash Capital, SV Angel, NFDG, and BroadLight Capital. Alongside these, ElevenLabs is also picking up a number of new strategic backers -- that is, companies using its technology who are now investing in it, too. These include Deutsche Telekom, LG Technology Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, NTT DOCOMO Ventures, and RingCentral Ventures. ICONIQ partner Seth Pierrepont will join the company's board, alongside existing board members Jennifer Li from a16z and the co-founders of the company. ICONIQ has been ramping up its activities around generative AI startups. Tapping into written output, the firm also co-led a $200 million round in Writer last November. "We have always felt that audio is a very important modality, and we thought there will be a very big company built in this category," Pierrepont told TechCrunch. "We have observed ElevenLabs from its launch, and we were impressed by the quality of the technology, how quickly it ascended in terms of mindshare and momentum, and the depth of domain expertise of the founders." Pierrepont added that as a board member, a lot of the conversations with the company will be around creating new use cases for audio and finding the right markets for it. At a time when startups are still finding it challenging to close growth rounds, it's notable that ElevenLabs raised its Series B round of $80 million, which valued it at $1 billion, just a year ago. ElevenLabs has raised a total of $281 million to date. In addition to a focus on improving its AI models, the company plans to use the funding to grow its conversational AI builder with an ambition to reach more consumers directly and through partnerships. Last year, the company debuted an AI conversational agent platform, and a key part of that product was developing a speech-to-text component. Staniszewski noted that the company wants to improve in that area a lot more. "We want to understand what's being said by you in a conversation better. We are working on ways to move away from only generating content and understanding and transcribing speech," Staniszewski said. "Many people say that speech-to-text is a solved problem. But for many languages, it is pretty bad. We think we can build better speech detection models because we have in-house teams to annotate data and give us quick feedback." The company also wants to double down on creating AI-powered conversational agents by supporting legacy communications like telephony and better integrating different kinds of knowledge sources. This is partly why it is partnering with telcos in this round. It's also being used by its customers to tap into their own archives. Last year, ElevenLabs partnered with TIME publication to deploy a conversational bot for users to ask questions about TIME Person of the Year. Staniszewski said the company envisions more conversational AI agents on sites: on news sites, for example, users would be able to ask questions about stories or ask the bot to summarize them. The CEO also noted that while AI-powered voice bots' quality has improved, the problem of sounding natural while reacting to humans speaking or emoting in different ways has not been solved yet. "The way I speak to you impacts how you react or respond to me. Sometimes, I'll be excited, or sometimes, I'll be calm, and at times, I will interrupt you. You will respond to me accordingly. Current-gen AI solutions are on the verge of being good, but they are not as good as humans," Staniszewski said. ICONIQ's Pierrepont also emphasized that if AI doesn't understand you well when you are talking, machine communication breaks down and users immediately lose interest. ElevenLabs has mostly grown its reach (and revenue funnel) by way of B2B partnerships. But it's also going out on a direct limb, too. In 2024, the startup launched its first purely consumer-facing product, ElevenLabs Reader, an app that reads out articles, text, and documents. Later, the company added the ability to create a podcast with generative AI voices from documents and web pages -- not unlike what you can do with Google's NotebookLM. Staniszewski said that it wants to expand into more consumer experiences. It may actually already be doing that. TechCrunch spotted that the company has been testing a program on the ElevenLabs Reader app inviting users to publish audiobooks on the platform. The company also wants to give tools to creators to have multiple voices read out an audiobook in the future while also creating better localization. Staniszewski noted that the company is figuring out ways for users and companies to better distribute their content, including on its own app. Whether that brings it into actual direct competition with its customers will be something to watch. (That has been one reason why many B2B tech companies prefer to stay away from direct-to-consumer plays.) Notably, ElevenLabs powers voice technology for audio content platforms like Lightspeed-backed Pocket FM and Google-backed Kuku FM. ElevenLabs already powers AI-generated audio on products and platforms like Perplexity, Rabbit R1, Chess.com, ESPN, Lex Fridman podcast, The Atlantic, and Synthesia. The goal for the company is to be in more places and also own an end-to-end conversation stack so it can generate more experiences and insights for its customers. Not all of ElevenLabs' silver linings have been without clouds: its tech has been implicated in a few notable misinformation campaigns. A recent report from threat intelligence company Recorded Future found that the company's product was used in a Russian propaganda operation. Last year, someone used the company's voice platform to create an audio deepfake of Joe Biden. In 2023, Motherboard reported that 4chan members allegedly used the AI audio generation tool to create voices that sounded like Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, and Emma Watson to spread problematic content. But the company has been quick to respond. Today, it has a policy prohibiting "unauthorized, harmful, or deceptive impersonation." Plus, it uses a mix of machine-led and human moderation to weed out such content. However, as the company grows its set of tools and has more direct consumer touchpoints, this opens the door to more opportunities for malicious actors to look for ways to misuse it. "As one of the frontrunners of AI audio work, we do treat it as our responsibility to build the right safety mechanism as we build out the technology. We will frequently make choices to prioritize safety over speed of deployment or commercial benefit," Staniszewski said. Staniszewski added that while the company follows C2PA, a standard to track content using metadata, it also has a public tool that allows anyone to check if audio was generated through ElevenLabs technology using digital signatures it places in the audio during generation. That could also be a track that continues to develop over time as approaches for misuse also become more sophisticated.

AI Startup ElevenLabs Raises Funds at Over $3 Billion Valuation

ElevenLabs, a startup that uses artificial intelligence software to replicate voices, has raised $180 million in a new round of funding that values the company at $3.3 billion, tripling what it was worth a year earlier. The round, announced on Thursday, was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq Growth, with participation from new and existing investors, including NEA and Sequoia Capital. ElevenLabs has raised a total of $280 million in funding to date.