Key Points:
- ElevenLabs raised $500 million, pushing its valuation to $11 billion.
- Sequoia Capital led the round with participation from Andreessen Horowitz.
- The company will focus on AI agents for enterprise customer support.
- Founders created the tech to fix bad movie dubbing they watched in Poland.
ElevenLabs, a startup that uses software to generate hyper-realistic voices, has seen its value skyrocket. The company announced on Wednesday that it raised $500 million in fresh cash. This move triples its valuation to $11 billion compared to where it stood just a year ago.
Sequoia Capital led the aggressive funding round, with partner Andrew Reed set to join the board of directors. Heavy hitters like Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq also put money in. New investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners and BOND, joined the mix as well. This funding frenzy highlights how eager investors remain for artificial intelligence. For context, rival AI firms like Anthropic are currently chasing deals involving hundreds of billions in valuation.
CEO Mati Staniszewski has clear plans for the new capital. The company intends to focus heavily on its enterprise customers. They are building conversational agents that can handle customer support, training, and sales tasks for big businesses. Staniszewski calls this sector a crucial “growth engine.”
Additionally, the team is expanding its physical presence, setting up shop in over a dozen cities across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. They have already signed partnerships with major players like Deutsche Telekom, Revolut, and the Ukrainian government.
The company’s rapid rise is notable. In early 2025, they raised money at a $3.3 billion valuation. Later that year, demand was so high that employees sold shares at a $6.6 billion valuation. Now, they have nearly doubled that figure again.
Staniszewski founded the company with Piotr Dabkowski, a former Google engineer. Growing up in Poland, the two friends hated watching Hollywood movies with poor voice-overs. They built ElevenLabs to fix that experience, creating tools that narrate audiobooks and dub movies seamlessly.
Success hasn’t come without headaches, though. Bad actors have used the voice-cloning tech for scams. In a high-profile incident during the 2024 New Hampshire primary, a user created a deepfake of President Joe Biden telling people not to vote. The company suspended that user and continues to fight against misuse as it scales up its operations globally.
