ElevenLabs
ElevenLabs is an American software company developing natural-sounding speech synthesis and text-to-speech software, using artificial intelligence and deep learning. History ElevenLabs was co-founded in 2022 by Piotr Dabkowski, an ex-Google machine learning engineer and Mati Staniszewski, an ex-Palantir deployment strategist. Both were raised in Poland, and their inspiration for founding ElevenLabs reportedly came from watching inadequately dubbed American films. Dabkowski and Staniszewski initially considered different funding options, including the possibility of collaborating with a startup accelerator. In January 2023 they revealed having secured a $2 million pre-seed round. The startup's specialization in AI voice intelligence, a still-emerging field in Europe, played a significant role in attracting investors. The pre-seed funding was primarily led by Credo Ventures. In January 2023, ElevenLabs publicly released its beta platform. In June 2023, ElevenLabs raised a $19 million Series A funding round at a valuation of about $100 million, despite the company having no office and only 15 employees. The funding round was co-led by the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and entrepreneur Daniel Gross. It also saw participation from prominent such as SV Angel, Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram), Brendan Iribe (co-founder of Oculus), Mustafa Suleyman (co-founder of Deepmind), and