Voice AI company ElevenLabs today announced that it has raised $500 million in a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital, an investor in the startup's final second round of bidding. Sequoia partner Andrew Reed will join the company's board of directors.
The company is now valued at $11 billion, more than triple the valuation from its previous round in January 2025. Earlier this year, the Financial Times reported that the startup was considering raising money at that valuation.
The company said existing investor a16z has quadrupled its investment, while Iconiq, which led the previous round, has tripled its investment. Previous investors including BroadLight, NFDG, Valor Capital, AMP Coalition, and Smash Capital also participated in the round. New investors for the funding include Lightspeed Venture Partners and Evantic.
Capital and bonds.
Eleven Labs announced that it will disclose some investors who may become strategic partners in the second half of February. The company has raised more than $781 million to date. The funds will be used for research and product development, as well as expansion into international markets such as India, Japan, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico.
The company's co-founder Matty Staniszewski suggested Eleven Labs could take agents beyond voice and incorporate video. In January, the company announced a partnership with LTX to produce audio-to-video content.
“The intersection of models and products is important, and our team has proven time and time again how to translate research into real-world experiences. This funding will help us go beyond just voice and completely transform the way we interact with technology. We plan to expand our creative offerings, helping creators combine best-in-class audio and video with agents, and enabling businesses to build agents that can speak, input, and take action,” he said in a statement.
The company has shown good growth momentum and ended the year with ARR of $330 million. In an interview with Bloomberg earlier this year, Staniszewski said it took ElevenLab five months to reach $200 million to $300 million in ARR.
Providers of voice AI models are attractive targets for investors and big tech companies. In January, rival DeepGram raised $130 million from AVP at a valuation of $1.3 billion. Meanwhile, Google has hired top talent from voice modeling company Hume AI, including CEO Alan Cowen.