Artificial Intelligence · Profile from AI Research Companion
ElevenLabs
The voice-AI company founded in 2022 by two Polish childhood friends, Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski, that turned frustration with flat, single-voice film dubbing in Poland into the most widely used independent text-to-speech, voice-cloning and dubbing platform, and then into a platform for voice agents. ElevenLabs competes with OpenAI, Google and Microsoft, whose general models also speak, by being better and faster at one thing — natural, expressive speech in dozens of languages — and by selling it through a self-serve creator product, a developer API and enterprise contracts. It grew from a beta in January 2023 to ~$330m of annual recurring revenue (ARR) at the end of 2025 and more than $500m by May 2026 (company statements, reported), raised a $500m Series D led by Sequoia at an $11bn valuation (February 2026) and was valued at ~$22bn in an employee tender offer in September 2026 (reported). Its history is also a catalogue of voice-AI misuse — the 4chan celebrity clips of January 2023 and the fake Biden robocall of January 2024 were made with its tools — and of the consent and licensing systems it built in response.
At a glance
- Founded
- 2022, by Mati Staniszewski (CEO; previously a deployment strategist at Palantir) and Piotr Dąbkowski (CTO; previously a machine-learning engineer at Google), friends from school in Warsaw (reported)
- Headquarters
- Incorporated in the US (Eleven Labs Inc.); described as based in New York and London, with a large engineering presence in Warsaw and offices in other European, Asian and Latin American cities; Amsterdam office opened 1 October 2026 (reported)
- Ownership / structure
- Private. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross (NFDG), Sequoia Capital, ICONIQ, Credo Ventures, Concept Ventures, NEA, Lightspeed, Bond, Evantic, Deutsche Telekom (reported, Series C), BlackRock and Nvidia (Series D extension, May 2026, reported); individual investors including Matthew McConaughey and Jamie Foxx (reported)
- Leadership (2026)
- Mati Staniszewski (co-founder and CEO); Piotr Dąbkowski (co-founder); Ethan Tandowsky (CFO, named 8 September 2026, reported); Andrew Reed of Sequoia joined the board with the Series D (February 2026)
- AI products
- Text-to-speech models (Multilingual v2, 2023; Turbo and Flash low-latency models, 2024–25; Eleven v3, alpha June 2025; v4 and v4 Turbo, 28 September 2026, reported); voice cloning (instant and professional) and Voice Library marketplace; Dubbing Studio (2023); speech-to-speech; sound effects (2024); Scribe speech-to-text (2025); Conversational AI / Agents platform (November 2024); Eleven Music (August 2025); Iconic Marketplace for licensed famous voices (November 2025); ElevenReader app; Eleven Realtime (20 October 2026, reported)
- Scale
- ~$330m ARR at the end of 2025 (company, as reported at the Series D; one aggregator says ~$350m — use ~$330m); >$500m ARR by May 2026 (company, reported); run rate >$600m with enterprise more than half of revenue (September 2026, reported). User and customer counts are company claims and not standardised
- Capital raised
- ~$2m pre-seed (January 2023, reported); $19m Series A (June 2023); $80m Series B at ~$1.1bn (January 2024); $180m Series C at ~$3.3bn (January 2025); employee tender ~$100m at ~$6.6bn (September 2025, reported); $500m Series D at $11bn led by Sequoia (4 February 2026), extended to >$550m (May 2026); employee tender ~$300m at ~$22bn co-led by Wellington and T. Rowe Price (30 September 2026, reported). Total primary funding ~$780–800m by February 2026 (reported)
- Key partnerships
- Merlin and Kobalt (music licensing, August 2025); Universal Music Group (multi-year agreement, 10 September 2026, reported); actors and estates in the Iconic Marketplace (Michael Caine, Matthew McConaughey and estates of deceased performers, November 2025); Deutsche Telekom (investor and telecom partner, verify scope); publishers, audiobook platforms and game studios (company case studies)
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Founding on the dubbing insight (2022); the beta and the 4chan clone misuse (2023); the Series A and multilingual dubbing (2023); the Series B unicorn round and Voice Library (2024); the Biden robocall and election safeguards (2024); the Vacker voice-actor lawsuit and settlement (2024–25); the Series C and the agents platform (2025); Eleven Music and the Iconic Marketplace (2025); the $11bn Series D and the $22bn tender (2026)
9 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2022
Founding and the Dubbing Insight
Founding
2023
Beta Launch and the 4chan Voice Clone Misuse
Launch / safety incident (failure)
2023
Series A and Multilingual Dubbing
Funding round / model release
2024
Biden Robocall and Election Safeguards
Safety incident (failure) / regulatory action against a user
2024
Series B Unicorn Round and the Voice Library
Funding round / marketplace launch
2024
Vacker Voice Actors Lawsuit and Settlement
Lawsuit (defendant) and settlement
2025
Eleven Music and the Iconic Marketplace
Product launch / licensing deals
2025
Series C and the Conversational Agents Platform
Funding round / product launch (platform pivot)
2026
Series D 11bn and the 22bn Tender
Funding round / secondary sale