Startups & Funding
ElevenLabs raises $500 million at $11 billion valuation
ElevenLabs raised $500 million at an $11 billion valuation, with plans to expand its voice AI technology into video and autonomous agents.
Voice AI company ElevenLabs announced today that it has raised $500 million in a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital, pushing the company’s valuation to $11 billion. The valuation is more than three times its valuation in its last round in January 2025. Sequoia partner Andrew Reed will join the company’s board as part of the deal. Sequoia previously invested in the startup’s last secondary round through a tender, which is a process for selling shares.
The company, which closed the year at $330 million in ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue), has now raised over $781 million to date. It previously took the company five months to grow from $200 million to $300 million in ARR. The funding round saw participation from both new and existing backers.
Existing investors who participated include:
- a16z, which quadrupled its investment amount
- Iconiq, which tripled its investment amount
- Prior investors BroadLight, NFDG, Valor Capital, AMP Coalition, and Smash Capital
New investors in the round include:
- Lightspeed Venture Partners
- Evantic Capital
- Bond
ElevenLabs stated that it will disclose some additional investors later in February, which might be strategic partners.
ElevenLabs plans to use the capital for research and product development, as well as expansion into international markets, specifically India, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, and Mexico. Co-founder Mati Staniszewski indicated that the company might work on agents beyond voice and incorporate video, building on a partnership announced in January with LTX to produce audio-to-video content. “This funding helps us go beyond voice alone to transform how we interact with technology altogether,” Staniszewski said in a statement. He added that the company plans to help creators combine audio with video and build agents that can talk, type, and take action.
The round highlights intense investor interest in the voice AI sector. Rival voice AI model provider Deepgram recently raised $130 million from AVP at a $1.3 billion valuation. Meanwhile, big tech companies are actively recruiting talent from the sector; Google recently hired talent from voice model company Hume AI, including its CEO Alan Cowen.
Why it matters
The $11 billion valuation—more than triple the company’s previous valuation—signals massive investor confidence in the shift from simple voice synthesis to multi-modal agents that can take action.