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AI audio startup ElevenLabs raises $180 million in a Series C funding round

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ISN Team
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ElevenLabs, a fast-growing AI audio startup, has announced a $180 million Series C funding round at a valuation of $3.3 billion. The round was co-led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and investment group ICONIQ Growth. 

Several new investors, including NEA, World Innovation Lab, Valor, Endeavor Catalyst Fund and Abu Dhabi’s Lunate, also took part, along with existing backers such as Sequoia Capital, Salesforce Ventures and Smash Capital.

This latest round brings ElevenLabs’ total funding to $281 million since its founding in 2022. The startup raised $80 million last year, when it was valued at over $1 billion.

Purpose of fundraising

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With the new funding, ElevenLabs aims to continue developing its AI voice and audio tools, making speech the focal point of digital communication.

The startup plans to expand its operations in Asia, Latin America, and the Europe-Middle East-Africa region, and it expects to boost its AI safety measures alongside the launch of new developer tools.

Voice AI and multimodal models

ElevenLabs chief executive and co-founder, Mati Staniszewski, said the company is focusing on “omni-models,” which combine text-based models with audio models to create multimodal interactions.

The startup wants to develop technology that produces more expressive and controllable speech, and it has already introduced products like Conversational AI for real-time speech interactions and the ElevenReader mobile app for reading documents out loud.

According to Staniszewski, ElevenLabs also plans to improve speech-to-text capabilities to handle more languages with higher accuracy, which will help AI-powered voice agents become more useful in day-to-day communication.

Growing list of customers and partners

ElevenLabs claims it serves major publishers, gaming companies and tech platforms. Perplexity, Chess.com, ESPN, The Atlantic are some of its clients.

The startup has also forged partnerships with telecom giants like Deutsche Telekom, LG Technology Ventures, NTT DOCOMO Ventures and RingCentral Ventures.

Addressing misuse and ensuring safety

While ElevenLabs has emerged as a leading innovator in voice AI, the company has also dealt with controversies involving its tools being used for deepfakes and deceptive content.

Staniszewski said ElevenLabs is strongly focused on building technology that prioritizes safety. The startup has a policy banning unauthorized and harmful impersonations, and it uses both automated and human oversight to remove problematic audio.

ElevenLabs also embeds digital signatures in the audio files it generates, allowing users to verify if a recording was created with its software.

Future plans

ElevenLabs aims to develop more conversational agents for different kinds of websites and apps, including news and educational platforms. It is also expanding direct-to-consumer services, such as the ElevenLabs Reader, which allows users to convert written content into spoken audio or podcasts.

The startup is exploring ways to let creators develop audiobooks featuring multiple AI voices and to offer better translation and localization for different regions.

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