ElevenLabs is a technology company operating in the field of AI-powered voice generation and speech technologies. Founded in 2022 and headquartered in London, the company develops products and solutions for text-to-speech (TTS), speech-to-text (STT), voice cloning, voice changing, and multilingual dubbing. Its core mission is to make content accessible in every language and voice, redefining digital communication through human-like voice synthesis technologies.
Founding and General Information
ElevenLabs was established in 2022 by Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski, both of Polish origin. Staniszewski previously worked at Palantir, while Dabkowski was a machine learning engineer at Google. Their motivation stemmed from dissatisfaction with the low-quality dubbing of American films they watched as children. The company is headquartered in London, UK, and as of 2025, employs approximately 55 people.
Core Technologies and Models
ElevenLabs is best known for its TTS and ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) models. Its "Multilingual v2" TTS model delivers emotionally rich and natural speech synthesis in 29 languages, while "Flash v2.5" is a low-latency, multilingual model designed for developers. The Scribe ASR model supports 99 languages, offering word-level timestamps, speaker diarization, and audio event tagging features.
Eleven Labs (ElevenLabs)
Voice Cloning and Design
The VoiceLab tool allows users to create realistic voice clones from short samples. Meanwhile, the Voice Design tool enables users to synthesize artificial voices from scratch by adjusting parameters such as age, accent, tone, and character type. These tools are widely used in audiobooks, video games, advertising, and podcasts.
Applications and Partnerships
ElevenLabs’ technologies are used across education, publishing, media, customer service, gaming, and healthcare sectors. Its clients include Spotify, Storytel, Perplexity AI, Chess.com, and Paradox Interactive. Thanks to a partnership with Findaway Voices, authors can now create and distribute audiobooks via Spotify using ElevenLabs' platform.
Security Policies
To prevent the misuse of synthetic voice technology, ElevenLabs implements comprehensive security measures. All generated content is moderated both automatically and manually. The platform enforces a "No-Go Voices" list for high-risk voice cloning and requires user verification via voiceCAPTCHA to ensure only the user's own voice is cloned.
Additionally, all generated audio is traceable; accounts are linked to verified billing info, and users violating the terms of service are permanently banned. ElevenLabs also cooperates with law enforcement in cases of illegal activity. As of 2024, the company is a signatory to the Tech Accord on Election Safety initiative.
The AI Speech Classifier tool allows users to determine whether a given voice sample was generated using ElevenLabs technology. The company also supports C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity) and the Content Authenticity Initiative to enhance content traceability and authenticity.
Scribe Model
The Scribe speech-to-text model has outperformed competitors such as Google Gemini 2.0 Flash and OpenAI Whisper Large V3 in benchmark tests. It supports 99+ languages and achieves up to 97% accuracy in some of the most widely spoken languages, including English, German, French, Japanese, and Hindi. A low-latency real-time version of Scribe is also in development.
Pricing Model
ElevenLabs offers various subscription plans for individual users, content creators, developers, and enterprises. Free plans include limited character and voice conversion time, while paid plans offer expanded capacity and additional features. Pricing tiers vary based on TTS and STT service quality, access to different models, voice cloning capability, and commercial license rights.
The pricing model is tiered based on character usage and selected service levels.
Developer plans offer technical features such as low-latency API access and multilingual support, while enterprise solutions include higher scalability, dedicated support, compliance certifications, and data handling assurances.
Funding and Valuation
In 2023, ElevenLabs raised $281 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and Sequoia Capital. By 2025, the company had reached a valuation of $3.3 billion and was included in Forbes' 2025 AI 50 list.
Criticisms
Due to its high-fidelity voice cloning capabilities, ElevenLabs has faced ethical scrutiny. Some users exploited the platform to impersonate celebrities or generate fake robocall messages. In response, the company introduced stricter content monitoring and mandatory account verification. Additionally, some voice actors have filed lawsuits alleging unauthorized cloning of their voices.
Future Outlook
ElevenLabs aims to enhance global content accessibility by focusing on emotionally expressive and context-aware voice generation. Future plans include developing dubbing solutions that preserve emotional nuance and original voice identity. The company also seeks to expand into areas like AI voice assistants, telephony interfaces, and video game characters.
