Eleven Labs, a startup that develops AI tools for audio applications, has been approached by existing and new investors for a new round that could value the company at $3 billion, according to research by TechCrunch. It is possible that it will be reached.
The two-year-old company specializes in creating AI tools for generating synthetic voices for audiobook narration and dubbing videos into other languages in real time.
Sources at interested venture capital firms told TechCrunch that investors are scrambling to get into the fast-growing company and that the company believes it needs it to participate in the next round. , said it was prepared to offer a valuation of up to $3 billion. The official said a deal is likely to be reached in the coming weeks.
Two other investors confirmed that Eleven Labs was raising capital, but the deal was shelved. One of these sources said the company's annual recurring revenue (ARR) has increased from $25 million at the end of last year to about $80 million in recent months, making it the fastest growing company to develop real-world applications for AI. I heard indirectly that it has become one of the growing startup companies. (These investors requested anonymity for competitive reasons.)
If accurate, this earnings figure means investors could be valuing Eleven Labs at about 38 times its latest ARR. This multiple is slightly lower than some enterprise-focused companies such as Hebbia and Glean.
The low multiple may be due to a significant portion of the revenue coming from consumer uses such as voice-overs and dubbing personal videos. Consumer revenues are considered to be more volatile than revenues from business customers.
If the round closes at a $3 billion valuation, ElevenLab will triple its valuation from January's Series B co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross.
This is Eleven Labs' third round in just over a year, but TechCrunch was unable to learn the potential size of the investment as discussions with investors are still ongoing. Eleven Labs has already raised $100 million.
Google's Gemini and OpenAI have introduced their own human voice models, but their products cannot replicate other human voices like Eleven Labs. Other companies targeting the synthetic speech generation market include Murf, Tavus, Resemble AI, Respeecher, and Lovo.
Eleven Lab did not respond to a request for comment.