The Polish founders of a fast-growing British AI start-up have seen the value of their stakes in the business surge to almost £5bn in a new funding deal.
It came after the start-up they founded, AI voice-over business ElevenLabs, doubled its valuation to $22bn (£16.5bn) after its latest share sale. Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski, both 31, are each understood to own around 15pc of the company.
Founded just four years ago, ElevenLabs was valued at $11bn in February thanks to its technology providing highly realistic AI voices for voice-overs, audiobooks and digital customer service bots.
Its latest deal has seen current employees and investors sell about $300m of stock to US funds Wellington Management and T Rowe Price, along with new investment from private equity firm EQT and Goldman Sachs.
Mr Staniszewski, the chief executive of ElevenLabs, said: “AI should interact with people the way we interact with each other.
“Getting this right will help ensure AI diffuses widely across the economy, and everyone is able to shape and benefit from it, regardless of technical skill.”
The start-up was founded by Mr Staniszewski, a graduate of Imperial College London and a former Palantir employee, and Mr Dąbkowski, a former Oxford and Cambridge University student who went on to work at Google, when the pair were in their late 20s.
The duo came up with the idea for an AI audio start-up based on their experience of listening to badly dubbed films in their native Poland.
The business has since expanded rapidly with major offices in London, New York and Warsaw with more than 800 staff.
It is one of a new wave of technology businesses in London that have enjoyed a major boost from a global AI funding surge.
Earlier this year, AI lab Ineffable, founded by former DeepMind scientists, raised more than $1.1bn for its technology. Synthesia, which is developing realistic AI avatars, raised more than $200m in January.
ElevenLabs’ AI audio technology works in more than 90 languages, offering everything from localised audiobooks to translated podcasts. Among its investors is Matthew McConaughey.
It also provides digital voice agents to other businesses, which are used to provide human-sounding customer support bots for businesses including Revolut and Klarna.
Mr Staniszewski said: “We’re already seeing rapid adoption of expressive voice agents by enterprises and governments.”
