In just a few years, ElevenLabs has established itself as a major player in the field of synthetic voice technology. Specializing in voice cloning and dubbing tools, this New York-based startup recently raised $250 million in a Series C round, bringing its valuation to between $3 billion and $3.3 billion.
A Vision Born from Childhood in Poland
The founders of ElevenLabs, originally from Poland, were inspired by the poor quality of dubbing in American videos they watched as children. This personal experience pushed them to explore the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence to create superior synthetic voice technology. Their ambition was clear: to use technology to deliver better sound quality in multimedia applications.
This bold vision has paid off. Today, ElevenLabs offers a variety of services ranging from text-to-speech translation to voice cloning and even the creation of entirely new voices. All of these services are accessible via a user-friendly API, making them easy to integrate into different types of products and platforms.
Varied and enriching applications
ElevenLabs does not just offer a simple voice cloning solution. The company has expanded its offering with a multitude of tools that meet the diverse needs of the creative industries. Use cases include film and series dubbing, audiobook creation, and narration generation for various media productions.
The company’s ability to translate cloned voices into more than two dozen languages and preserve intonation, emotion, and speech styles gives its customers a significant advantage. A striking example is the recent multilingual translation of the interview between American blogger Lex Fridman and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, where each language retained the same vocal qualities as the original.
Strong support from investors
The company’s rapid and impressive expansion would not have been possible without the support of many influential investors. The latest fundraising round was led by ICONIQ Growth, with notable participation from Andreessen Horowitz. In the past, ElevenLabs has already received financial support from giants such as Sequoia, Credo Ventures, Concept Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, and even Disney. These massive investments demonstrate the growing confidence in the startup’s capabilities and potential.
Although the initial funding target was for a valuation of $4 billion, it was eventually revised slightly downward, consolidating the valuation at $3 billion to $3.3 billion. This realignment remains competitive, however, especially when you consider that some investors are willing to pay up to 50 times annual recurring revenue (ARR) for the most dynamic AI companies.
Ethical and legal challenges around voice cloning
ElevenLabs’ meteoric rise has not been without controversy. The use of voice cloning technology has raised many ethical questions, particularly when it comes to reproducing the voices of deceased people. One notable incident involves Aurore Bergé, the Minister for Gender Equality and the Fight against Discrimination, who accused ElevenLabs of illegally using the cloned voice of her late father, Alain Dorval, famous for being the French voice of Sylvester Stallone.
Bergé said the initial agreement stipulated that the family would have a right of final approval before any public use of Dorval’s voice. In response, ElevenLabs clarified that the project is still ongoing and that the final decision on the use of the cloned voice remains in the hands of the family. A situation that underlines the importance of transparency and consent in the use of voice cloning technologies.
Despite these challenges, the future of ElevenLabs seems bright. The diversity of its applications continues to attract a prestigious clientele, including publishers such as the Washington Post, HarperCollins and Bertelsmann, as well as video game developers.
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