Andreessen Horowitz leads $19m injection into London ‘voice AI’ firm
Heavyweight Silicon Valley investor Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has led a $19m funding injection into London-based AI firm Eleven Labs to help accelerate a new wave of “voice AI research”, the firm announced today.
Eleven Labs, headquartered in London with operations in New York, said the fresh capital injection was led by a16z alongside US investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, with support from venture firms Credo and, Concept Ventures.
The round valued Eleven Labs at $99m, City PM understands, and will now be channeled into developing “the most versatile and contextually-aware AI voices” ever created.
“Over the last five months, we’ve seen our technology embraced by millions of creators, companies, and curious minds,” said Mati Staniszewski, chief and co-founder of Eleven Labs.
“The creativity and innovation we’ve seen as a result have been incredible, and our latest research will continue expanding the limits of what’s possible with generative audio.”
Eleven Labs unveiled its Beta platform in January 2023 and has since tempted in 1m registered users who had created some 10 years worth of audio.
The firm uses AI tools to turn any form of text into speech with synthetic voices, cloned voices and artificial voices.
The tools have been picked up by a range of sectors, the firm said, with independent authors using the voices to create audiobooks, and visually impaired people to access online written content. The tech has also powered the world’s first AI radio channel.
The injection from a16z comes after the firm announced a major push into the UK last week with its first international office outside the US. The new UK division will focus primarily on crypto and Web 3 investment.
The move was welcomed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who said it was a “another huge vote of confidence in the UK as a place to build and grow tech businesses of the future.”