CtrlK
ElevenLabs is an AI voice technology company specializing in speech synthesis, voice cloning, and audio AI tools. Founded in 2022 by Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski, both raised in Poland, ElevenLabs develops text-to-speech software capable of producing lifelike speech with realistic emotion, intonation, and pacing. The company's products span voice generation, voice cloning, AI dubbing, sound effects, music generation, and conversational AI for voice agents [1].
ElevenLabs has raised a total of $781 million across five funding rounds since its founding, reaching an $11 billion valuation after a $500 million Series D in February 2026 [2]. The company closed 2025 with over $330 million in annual recurring revenue, driven by a combination of consumer and enterprise adoption [3]. ElevenLabs has become one of the most prominent companies in the generative AI landscape, though it has also faced scrutiny over the potential misuse of its voice cloning technology for deepfakes and misinformation.
ElevenLabs was co-founded in 2022 by Piotr Dabkowski and Mati Staniszewski. Dabkowski, a machine learning engineer, previously worked at Google, while Staniszewski was a deployment strategist at Palantir Technologies. Both grew up in Poland, and their inspiration for founding ElevenLabs reportedly came from watching poorly dubbed American films as children. The experience of hearing Hollywood actors speak with mismatched voices and flat intonation left a lasting impression, and the pair set out to build technology that could produce natural-sounding speech across languages while preserving the speaker's original voice characteristics [1].
The company is headquartered in New York City, with operations also based in London and Poland.
ElevenLabs secured a $2 million pre-seed round in early 2023, led by Credo Ventures with participation from Concept Ventures [4]. The company quickly followed this with a $19 million Series A round in June 2023, led by Nat Friedman (former CEO of GitHub), Daniel Gross, and Andreessen Horowitz, at a valuation of approximately $100 million [5]. The rapid progression from pre-seed to Series A reflected strong investor confidence in the commercial potential of high-quality voice synthesis.
ElevenLabs' growth accelerated dramatically through 2024, 2025, and into 2026.
| Round | Date | Amount | Valuation | Lead investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-seed | January 2023 | $2M | Undisclosed | Credo Ventures, Concept Ventures |
| Series A | June 2023 | $19M | ~$100M | Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Andreessen Horowitz |
| Series B | January 2024 | $80M | $1.1B | Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross |
| Series C | January 2025 | $180M | $3.3B | Andreessen Horowitz, others |
| Series D | February 2026 | $500M | $11B | NVIDIA, others |
The Series B round in January 2024 raised $80 million and pushed the company's valuation to $1.1 billion, making ElevenLabs a unicorn just two years after its founding [6]. The Series C in January 2025 brought in $180 million at a $3.3 billion valuation [7]. The $500 million Series D in February 2026, backed by NVIDIA among other investors, tripled the valuation to $11 billion and brought total funding to $781 million [2].
Total revenue grew from approximately $120 million in annual recurring revenue at the end of 2024 to over $330 million by the end of 2025, representing 175% year-over-year growth. Enterprise revenue alone grew 200% year-over-year, with clients including Deutsche Telekom and Revolut [3].
ElevenLabs' core technology is built on proprietary voice synthesis models that combine deep learning with context-aware text analysis to produce speech that sounds natural and emotionally appropriate.
The company's models are trained to interpret the context of input text and adjust intonation, pacing, emphasis, and emotional tone accordingly. Rather than relying on hardcoded rules for pronunciation or inflection, ElevenLabs' system dynamically predicts thousands of voice characteristics based on the semantic content of the text [8]. The models analyze contextual aspects of the input to detect emotions such as anger, sadness, happiness, or alarm, and adjust the generated speech to reflect the appropriate sentiment.
Key technical capabilities include:
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| Contextual awareness | Models understand relationships between words and adjust delivery based on meaning, not just phonetics |
| Emotional synthesis | Speech output reflects appropriate emotional tone (excitement, sadness, urgency) based on text content |
| No hardcoded features | The system dynamically predicts voice characteristics rather than using fixed pronunciation rules |
| High compression | Proprietary methods for efficient audio generation and streaming |
| Multilingual support | Over 70 languages supported with natural pronunciation |
ElevenLabs has released multiple generations of its voice synthesis models, each with significant improvements.
| Model | Key features |
|---|---|
| Eleven Multilingual v1 | Early multilingual support |
| Eleven Multilingual v2 | Improved naturalness and language coverage |
| Eleven Flash v2.5 | Ultra-low latency (~75ms) for real-time applications and voice agents, supports 32 languages |
| Eleven v3 (2025) | Completely redesigned architecture with deeper text semantic understanding, support for 70+ languages, multi-character dialogue, and audio tags for fine-grained control |
Eleven v3, released in 2025, represented a major architectural overhaul. The model introduced deeper understanding of text semantics, enabling more expressive and nuanced speech. It supports multi-character dialogue scenarios and can simulate natural conversation characteristics such as tone changes, emotional fluctuations, and interruptions [8].
ElevenLabs offers a broad and expanding suite of audio AI products.
The company's flagship product converts written text into natural-sounding speech. Users can select from over 10,000 voices in the Voice Library, including realistic accents, character voices, and professional narration styles. The text-to-speech engine powers many of ElevenLabs' other products and is available through both a web interface and an API [1].
VoiceLab allows users to clone voices from short audio samples and create entirely new synthetic voices. The voice cloning feature requires only a few minutes of recorded audio to generate a voice model that captures the speaker's unique vocal characteristics. ElevenLabs offers two cloning modes:
Voice cloning has applications in content creation, audiobook narration, podcast production, and accessibility tools for people who have lost the ability to speak [1].
The Voice Library is a marketplace where users can share and discover voice profiles created using ElevenLabs' Voice Design technology. Pre-designed voice profiles allow users to select voices suited to their needs without creating a custom clone. The Voice Library includes community-created voices as well as professionally designed options [1].
ElevenLabs' AI Dubbing tool translates speech into more than 20 languages while preserving the original speaker's voice, emotions, and intonation. This allows content creators, film studios, and media companies to localize audio and video content without hiring separate voice actors for each language. The dubbing system maintains lip-sync timing and emotional delivery across languages [1].
Released in November 2024, Conversational AI is a developer platform for building and deploying interactive voice agents. The platform enables real-time, natural speech interactions for applications such as customer service, sales, healthcare, and education. Conversational AI supports low-latency responses (enabled by the Eleven Flash model) and integrates with enterprise workflows [9].
ElevenReader is a mobile app (available on iOS and Android) that allows users to listen to articles, PDFs, ePubs, and other text content read aloud by AI voices. Launched in June 2024, the app turns any written content into an audio experience. In February 2025, ElevenLabs expanded the platform to allow authors to create and publish AI-generated audiobooks directly through the Reader app [10].
ElevenLabs expanded beyond voice into broader audio generation:
Launched in November 2025, the Iconic Voice Marketplace is a curated platform where brands can license AI-generated versions of celebrity and historical voices for marketing, entertainment, and branded storytelling. The marketplace operates on a consent-only model, where only verified talent or authorized estates can list voices [12].
Notable voices available on the marketplace include Michael Caine, Maya Angelou, Alan Turing, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Judy Garland, Mark Twain, and others. Actor Matthew McConaughey partnered with ElevenLabs for the marketplace and also invested in the company [12].
Studio 3.0 is an AI-powered audio and video editor designed for content creators, podcasters, and audiobook authors. It combines AI audio editing, video editing, and professional sound design capabilities, allowing users to produce content with expressive AI voiceovers, music, and sound effects in a single workflow [10].
Released in February 2025, Scribe is a speech-to-text model that transcribes audio with character-level timestamps and speaker diarization (identifying which speaker said what). Scribe complements ElevenLabs' text-to-speech products by providing the reverse capability [10].
ElevenLabs' technology is used across a wide range of industries and applications.
| Use case | Description |
|---|---|
| Audiobooks | Publishers and independent authors use ElevenLabs to produce AI-narrated audiobooks, reducing production time and cost compared to human narration |
| Film and TV dubbing | Studios localize content across 20+ languages while preserving the original actor's voice and emotional delivery |
| Accessibility | People with speech disabilities or degenerative conditions can clone their voice while they still have it, preserving their vocal identity for future use |
| Gaming | Game developers generate character dialogue at scale without needing voice actors for every line |
| Podcasts and content creation | Creators use AI voices for narration, character voices, and audio content production |
| Customer service | Enterprises deploy conversational AI voice agents for support, sales, and internal workflows |
| Education | Language learning platforms and educational content use AI voices for instruction and practice |
| Telecommunications | Companies like Deutsche Telekom integrate ElevenLabs for customer-facing voice interactions |
ElevenLabs' voice cloning technology has raised concerns about its potential for misuse, particularly in creating audio deepfakes for fraud, misinformation, and impersonation. Shortly after the company's public launch in early 2023, users demonstrated the ability to clone voices of public figures, prompting widespread discussion about the ethical implications of accessible voice cloning technology.
The most high-profile controversy involving ElevenLabs occurred in January 2024, when a robocall using an AI-generated imitation of President Joe Biden's voice was sent to voters in New Hampshire ahead of the state's primary election. The fake call discouraged recipients from voting, falsely claiming that voting in the primary would prevent them from participating in the general election [13].
Voice-fraud detection company Pindrop analyzed the audio and concluded with over 99% certainty that it was created using ElevenLabs' technology [13]. ElevenLabs confirmed the finding and banned the account responsible for generating the deepfake.
The incident had significant regulatory consequences. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proposed making the use of AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) [14]. A Texas-based political consultant, Steve Kramer, was later identified as the orchestrator of the robocall and faced legal consequences.
In response to misuse concerns, ElevenLabs has implemented a range of safety measures:
| Measure | Description |
|---|---|
| Account verification | Identity verification requirements for voice cloning access |
| Political figure blocking | Automatic blocking of attempts to clone voices of political figures |
| Personal voice verification | Verification process for cloning that confirms the user has the right to clone a given voice |
| AI detection tool | A tool that detects whether a voice sample is AI-generated |
| Reality Defender partnership | Partnership with Reality Defender (announced July 2024) for deepfake detection, giving Reality Defender access to ElevenLabs' data and models for improved AI audio detection [14] |
| Content moderation | Review processes for flagged content and prohibited use cases |
| Consent-based marketplace | The Iconic Voice Marketplace only allows voices listed with explicit consent from the talent or authorized rights holders |
ElevenLabs' safety statement allows voice cloning for certain non-commercial purposes (private study, non-commercial research, education, parody, satire, artistic and political speech) as long as it does not impact the person's privacy or economic interests [13].
ElevenLabs operates on a freemium model with tiered pricing for individuals and enterprises.
| Metric | Value | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Annual recurring revenue | ~$120M | End of 2024 |
| Annual recurring revenue | $330M+ | End of 2025 |
| Year-over-year ARR growth | 175% | 2024 to 2025 |
| Enterprise revenue growth | 200% YoY | 2024 to 2025 |
| Revenue split (end of 2025) | ~50% enterprise, ~50% consumer | December 2025 |
| Projected revenue split (2026) | ~60% enterprise, ~40% consumer | December 2026 |
The company offers free tier access with limited usage, paid individual plans for content creators and developers, and enterprise plans with custom pricing, higher usage limits, and dedicated support. The API is a significant revenue driver, enabling developers and businesses to integrate ElevenLabs' voice capabilities into their own applications [3].
ElevenLabs has publicly indicated its intention to pursue an initial public offering. Following the $500 million Series D round in February 2026, the company stated it aims to be IPO-ready within two to three years, pointing to a potential public listing in 2027 or 2028 [15]. If it proceeds, ElevenLabs would be one of the first AI companies founded in Europe to go public, though the company's primary operations are now based in New York and London.
ElevenLabs competes in the AI voice and audio generation market against both established technology companies and specialized startups.
| Competitor | Focus area | Key differentiator |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Polly | Cloud text-to-speech | Integrated with AWS ecosystem |
| Google Cloud TTS | Cloud text-to-speech | Leverages Google's natural language processing research |
| Microsoft Azure TTS | Cloud text-to-speech | Integrated with Azure and Office products |
| Murf AI | Voice generation for creators | Focus on marketing and presentation voiceovers |
| Resemble AI | Voice cloning and synthesis | Real-time voice conversion and deepfake detection |
| PlayHT | Text-to-speech API | Focus on developer-friendly API access |
| LOVO AI | AI voiceover platform | Focus on content creation workflows |
| Speechify | Text-to-speech reader | Consumer-focused reading app |
ElevenLabs differentiates itself through the naturalness and emotional range of its voice synthesis, its broad product suite (spanning TTS, cloning, dubbing, music, and conversational AI), and its rapid model iteration. The company's $11 billion valuation as of early 2026 makes it the most highly valued pure-play AI voice company [2].
As of March 2026, ElevenLabs is one of the fastest-growing AI companies globally. With $330 million in ARR at the end of 2025 and plans to double that figure in 2026, the company is scaling across both consumer and enterprise segments [3]. The Series D funding of $500 million at an $11 billion valuation, backed by NVIDIA, positions ElevenLabs for continued expansion and a potential IPO in 2027 or 2028 [15].
The company's product portfolio has expanded well beyond its original text-to-speech offering. ElevenLabs now operates across voice generation, voice cloning, dubbing, sound effects, music generation, speech-to-text transcription, conversational AI, and a celebrity voice marketplace. The enterprise platform, ElevenAgents, is a growing focus area, supporting customer experience, sales and marketing, and internal workflows with interactive voice agents [3].
ElevenLabs employs a workforce distributed across New York, London, and Poland. The company continues to invest in model development, with v3 representing the latest generation of its voice synthesis technology. Safety and trust remain active areas of investment, particularly as regulatory attention on AI-generated audio increases in the wake of the Biden robocall incident and broader concerns about audio deepfakes.