In a landmark deal reshaping the artificial intelligence landscape, voice synthesis pioneer ElevenLabs has secured a staggering $500 million in a Series D funding round led by Sequoia Capital. The investment, announced on February 18, 2025, catapults the startup's valuation to an unprecedented $11 billion—a more than threefold increase from its $3.6 billion valuation in January 2025.
The round saw aggressive participation from existing investors, with Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) quadrupling its investment and ICONIQ Capital tripling its commitment. Other prior backers like BroadLight, NFDG, Valor Capital, AMP Coalition, and Smash Capital also increased their stakes. New institutional capital flowed in from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Evantic Capital, and BOND. To date, ElevenLabs has raised over $781 million in total funding.
The valuation surge reflects blistering commercial execution. The company closed 2024 with an annual recurring revenue (ARR) run rate of $330 million, having grown from $200 million to $300 million in ARR in just five months. Co-founder Mati Staniszewski revealed this rapid growth to Bloomberg, underscoring the company's sales velocity.
ElevenLabs plans to deploy the new capital across three core areas: advanced research and development, international expansion into markets like India, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, and Mexico, and product evolution beyond voice. The roadmap includes developing an enhanced creative suite combining audio synthesis with video generation and building a platform for multimodal AI agents capable of talking, typing, and executing actions.
The funding event occurs within a heated competitive environment. In January 2025, rival voice AI firm Deepgram raised $130 million at a $1.3 billion valuation, while Google made strategic hires from competitor Hume AI. The sector is seen as a critical battleground, with ElevenLabs positioning itself as a foundational platform for AI-driven interaction.
Strategic backing from Nvidia, which joined as an investor in September 2025, adds significant weight. CEO Jensen Huang has publicly endorsed the partnership, describing ElevenLabs' technology as a key piece of Nvidia's broader AI infrastructure push. The company's enterprise client roster now includes Cisco, Epic Games, Adobe, Meta, Salesforce, Deutsche Telekom, and Revolut.
With a clear path to exceeding $500 million in annual revenue, industry analysts view the round as validation of the "AI-native platform" thesis and a signal of strong confidence in voice and multimodal AI as critical infrastructure. The capital infusion accelerates ElevenLabs' transformation from a voice synthesis specialist into a comprehensive platform, with an IPO potentially on the horizon for 2027 or 2028.
