London-based startup ElevenLabs, which specializes in artificial intelligence for speech generation and transcription, has announced that it raised $500 million (approximately CZK 11.5 billion) in a Series D funding round. Led by Sequoia Capital, the financing valued the company at $11 billion (roughly CZK 253 billion), representing more than three times its value in January 2025, when it was valued at $3.3 billion.
Technology, products, and customers
Andreessen Horowitz, Iconiq, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Evantic Capital also participated in the investment. New investors include Nvidia, which is also one of the startup's key customers. ElevenLabs, founded in 2022 by Piotr Dabkowski and CEO Mati Staniszewski, generates more than $330 million (approximately CZK 7.6 billion) in annual revenue. Its customers also include Meta Platforms.
The company's latest AI model, Eleven v3, was introduced in January and can generate synthetic speech in more than 70 languages, including Czech, and simulate nonverbal reactions. Users interact with the model by entering written text and can use so-called audio tags to customize the output in detail. The company also offers other models. Eleven v2.5 Turbo is a faster alternative to Eleven v3 that can generate speech almost in real time and is designed for applications such as customer service assistants that require rapid responses. The Scribe v2 model is a speech transcription algorithm that understands more than 90 languages.
Cloud services for businesses
The models are available through an application programming interface (API) that developers can integrate into their software. The company also operates two cloud services - ElevenAgents and ElevenCreative. ElevenAgents allows businesses to create AI voice agents for tasks such as answering customer support inquiries. A library of more than 400 connectors is used to integrate agents with enterprise systems. A drag-and-drop interface allows the AI's behavior to be customized - for example, an electronics manufacturer can specify when the agent should escalate requests to a human representative.
ElevenCreative is optimized for content creation. Marketers can use it to create background music for advertisements. Integration with third-party AI models allows customers to generate images and videos using text prompts.
From controversies to celebrity partnerships
The startup faced criticism early in its existence. After launching its voice-generation software in 2022, it was sued by voice actors and faced backlash after its technology was used on the online forum 4chan to impersonate actress Emma Watson and podcaster Joe Rogan. The lawsuit was later settled.
Recently, however, the company has entered into partnerships with celebrities such as Michael Caine, who licensed and cloned his voice, and Matthew McConaughey, who uses ElevenLabs to translate his voice into Spanish for his newsletter. In August, the company launched an AI music generator, and in January it released the album "The Eleven Album", created in collaboration with musicians.
"We plan to expand our Creative offering - helping creators combine our cutting-edge audio with video and agents, and enabling businesses to build agents that can speak, write, and act," said Mati Staniszewski. The company intends to use the funds raised to develop new AI models and expand its presence across more than a dozen international markets where it already operates.
The funding comes as ElevenLabs benefits from the viral popularity of the OpenClaw ecosystem, where users integrate the company's voice models to create personal AI agents. Staniszewski hopes to double the company's annual revenue this year.
Sources: wsj.com and siliconangle.com
