Only have 1 minute? Here are 3 key takeaways:
- ElevenLabs successfully closed an $80 million Series B funding round, bringing their total raised capital to $101 million, and achieving unicorn status.
- The round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross, with the participation of Sequoia Capital, Smash Capital, SV Angel, BroadLight Capital, and Credo Ventures.
- The new investment will be used for AI research and product deployment, expanding infrastructure and the team, and developing new products for specific verticals.
Polish ElevenLabs, a startup developing AI-powered tools to create and edit synthetic voices, closed an $80M Series B, which led them to a total raise of $101M. The company has now an unicorn status, being valued at over $1B.
The round was co-led by the previous investors Andreessen Horowitz, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and entrepreneur Daniel Gross, with the participation of Sequoia Capital, Smash Capital, SV Angel, BroadLight Capital, and the Czech-based venture capital firm, Credo Ventures.
ElevenLabs, a research startup developing AI voice synthesis software for creators and publishers, launched a beta version around a year ago. The company was founded in 2022 by two Polish childhood friends, Mati Staniszewski, a former Palantir deployment strategist, and Piotr Dabkowski, an ex-Google machine learning engineer. Both sharing a passion for technology, they were inspired to create voice cloning tools by poorly dubbed American films.
With this Series B investment, ElevenLabs intends to strengthen its position in voice AI research and product deployment. The capital will be put into advancing research, expanding infrastructure and the team, and developing new products for specific verticals. The CEO, Mati Staniszewski, says they are dedicated to enhancing “safety measures to ensure responsible and ethical development of AI technology.”
ElevenLabs will focus on enabling detection to ensure all AI-generated content is clearly identifiable. The company launched an AI Speech Classifier last year, a tool that can verify if an audio sample contains ElevenLabs-generated content. This year, the company will work on enhancing the Classifier’s capabilities to cover more voice AI models, as well as partner with other distribution platforms for wider implementation.
ElevenLabs is also revealing a set of new products, including Dubbing Studio, Voice Library marketplace, an early preview of a Mobile Reader App, and new models with improved speed and language coverage.
Throughout 2023, ElevenLabs has also expanded its presence in various sectors, including publishing, gaming, media, and conversational verticals, as well as forging B2B partnerships with major media houses, including Storytel, The Washington Post, FlowGPT, TheSoul Publishing, Paradox Interactive, and more.
ElevenLabs plans to grow its headcount from 40 people to 100 by the end of the year. “Our team’s dedication has already made a lasting impact on voice AI. This new funding enables us to take on even bigger challenges and focus on maintaining our competitive edge in research and product development”, adds Piotr Dabkowski, CTO of ElevenLabs.
