AI voice cloning startup ElevenLabs has gained unicorn status after its latest round of fundraising, per a Reuters report on Monday. According to a source, the company raised $80 million in Series B funding from investors led by Andreessen Horowitz, along with entrepreneurs Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross with participation from Sequoia Capital and others.
The round brought up ElevenLabs’ total funds raised to $101 million and pulls up company valuation to around $1.1 billion. According to Pitchbook datathis is a mark up from the $100 million valuation from its previous funding around in 2023.
Company CEO Mati Staniszewski said that the startup currently employs around 40 remote workers globally and plans to expand to 100 by the end of the year.
The firm has a growing customer base that counts companies like Storytel, Paradox Interactive and The Washington Post, as well as other individual content creators. Staniszewski also said that ElevenLabs is being used ahead of the U.S. elections to translate speeches for voters who speak foreign languages.
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The company has also faced criticism for cases where its tech was misused. Messaging board 4chan used ElevenLabs to post hateful messages that cloned the voices of actors like Emma Watson. Multiple reports in the past have shown that the tech cloned voice messages containing violent threats or racist remarks, without any safeguards.
The startup has tried to weed out users who use abusive language and also rolled out a tool to detect such speech. ElevenLabs plans to improve this detection tool this year and make it available on third-party platforms, the company said.
Published - January 24, 2024 12:16 pm IST
