CEO of ElevenLabs discusses $600 million in revenue and the AI laboratories.

      This week, the ALL-IN Podcast hosted its live show at the Louvre for the RAISE Summit, placing ElevenLabs co-founder and CEO Mati Staniszewski in a challenging position. Host Jason Calacanis dove straight into the tough topics: revenue, competition, and whether a voice startup can endure longer than OpenAI and Anthropic. Staniszewski remarked, “It’s the best time to be building.”

      A revenue surge few can rival

      Staniszewski set the stage with impressive figures. He mentioned that the company released its first truly human-like text-to-speech model in early 2023, taking about 20 months to achieve $100 million in annual recurring revenue. The subsequent milestones were reached more quickly: around 10 months to $200 million and just five months to $300 million by the end of last year. Calacanis estimated the current run rate at nearly $600 million, a figure Staniszewski did not contest. This upward trajectory aligns with the startup's increasing valuation, recently discussed at $22 billion.

      No product managers, engineers all around

      Despite its growth, the company’s structure remains tight-knit. Staniszewski explained that ElevenLabs operates with small teams of five to ten members, without any product managers. Engineers are embedded in nearly all roles, including legal, talent acquisition, and market strategies. These engineers take on dual responsibilities: they create internal automation and assist their colleagues in safely adopting AI, ensuring a security review for whatever is launched. The pitch is that with the right tools, marketers and lawyers can elevate their skills from basic to advanced without needing specialized training.

      People share the truth with machines

      According to Staniszewski, voice technology has made significant progress. He noted that much of the recent growth has been driven by enterprises and sales teams, as real-time, interruptible voice agents have become reliable enough to trust. A noteworthy observation is that when working with financial institutions like Revolut and Klarna for payment reminders, people tend to be more honest with AI than with humans. The embarrassment subsides, allowing callers to convey their true circumstances, and interactions with the machine tend to be quicker and more concise.

      Navigating the cloning challenge

      Voice technology is closely tied to identity, which presents ongoing risks of misuse. Calacanis recounted his own experience of discovering a cloned version of his voice in a spoof podcast created from his show’s archives. Staniszewski stated that ElevenLabs actively moderates all generated content, conducting checks at both the voice and text levels to prevent commercial misuse or scams. They have also developed a classifier that identifies AI-generated audio for both their proprietary models and open-source ones.

      This technology creates new opportunities as well. A creator marketplace allows voice actors to license their voices and earn income, with Staniszewski reporting over $22 million paid to this community. ElevenLabs has also licensed multilingual adaptations of Matthew McConaughey's voice, facilitated an interactive Darth Vader in Fortnite through Disney, and assisted individuals who lost their voices due to illness in regaining the ability to speak, including a U.S. congresswoman and a bride renewing her vows.

      The challenge from tech giants

      Calacanis then addressed the real threat: ElevenLabs relies on models developed by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, which are increasingly vying for its market. Staniszewski emphasized the company’s position as model-agnostic, allowing customers to select any model to build their voice agents without being tied to a single vendor. He claimed that ElevenLabs' advantage lies in its voice layer, prioritizing architectural innovation over sheer scale. More than 1,000 contractors assist with labeling audio data, while industry-specific products and a diverse ecosystem of voices and integrations enhance their defenses. He acknowledged ongoing attempts by some competitors to extract ElevenLabs’ data but assured that the company has measures in place to mitigate these efforts. They are also considering developing their own models as a contingency.

      The underlying message was clear. ElevenLabs spends tens of millions annually on the same labs that are rapidly innovating to outpace it. At this point, its strategy is evident. It is one of Europe’s most valuable AI startups, partly owned by Poland and led by a Polish founder, asserting that controlling the conversation is more advantageous than simply owning the model.