ElevenLabs CEO/Co-Founder, Mati Staniszewski:The Untold Story of Europe’s Fastest Growing AI Startup

ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski announces $200M ARR, revealing the company hit $100M in 20 months and doubled it in 10 more.

• ElevenLabs crossed $200M ARR at time of recording; $35M end of 2023, $100M in 20 months, $200M in 10 more months.
• Pre-seed of $2M raised at $9M post-money valuation in mid-2022 after 30-50 investor rejections; funded from Google and Palantir savings.
• Only ~50-100 top-tier voice AI researchers exist globally; ElevenLabs claims 5-10 of the top 100, including co-founder Piotr Dabkowski.
• Biggest enterprise contracts ~$2M each; key customers include Cisco, Twilio, and Epic Games, mostly for call center and customer support voice agents.
• $3.3B valuation round closed Oct 2024 at ~$80-120M ARR — roughly 30x revenue at signing; backers include a16z, Sequoia, Nat Friedman, and Daniel Gross.
• Traditional press launch had near-zero user impact; Discord, Reddit, Hacker News, and AI newsletters drove actual growth.
• Mati believes EU AI regulation should mirror US law, calling it the single highest-leverage policy change Europe could make.
• ElevenLabs does secondary + tender offers every round so employees can sell vested stock, explicitly to reduce acquisition temptation.

2025-09-08 · Watch on YouTube