AI Speech SynthesisStartupsElevenLabsannounced that it has completed an $80 millionSeries B Financing, led by Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman and others. The round also featured participation from Sequoia Capital, Smash Capital, SV Angel, BroadLight Capital, and Credo Ventures, among others.Founded in 2022, ElevenLabs was founded by Piotr Dabkowski, a former Google machine learning engineer, and Mati Staniszewski, a former Palantir deployment strategist Mati Staniszewski.
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ElevenLabs develops AI-based tools for creating and editing synthesized speech. The company's most recognizable product is a browser-based voice generation application that allows users to create realistic voices by adjusting parameters such as pitch, emotion, and intonation. Users can use the default voice to read out typed text for free, and paid users can upload voice samples to customize new voice styles.ElevenLabs also works on developing speech generation technology suitable for creating audiobooks, movie and TV show voiceovers, game character voices, and more.
This round brings ElevenLabs' cumulative funding to $101 million and boosts the company's valuation to more than $1 billion, a significant increase from last June's valuation of approximately $100 million.ElevenLabs plans to use the new funding for product development, expanding its infrastructure and team, AI research, and strengthening security measures to ensure the responsible and ethical development of AI technology.
Despite ElevenLabs' success in the field of speech synthesis, the company has faced some controversy. There have been reports of some users using voice cloning tools on its platform to spread hate speech and mimic celebrities making threatening statements.ElevenLabs has taken steps to locate and stop users violating its terms of service and has launched a detection tool designed to recognize speech generated by its platform. The company plans to further improve the tool to recognize speech generated by other speech-generating AI models and work with distribution platforms to make the tool available on third-party platforms.
Additionally, ElevenLabs has been criticized by some voice actors who claim that the company is using their voice samples without authorization. In some reports, ElevenLabs' technology has been used in harassment campaigns, including the distribution of malicious cloned voices that mimic actors' voices in order to share private information.
One of ElevenLabs' solutions is to create a voice marketplace through which users can create, verify, and share voices and be compensated when others use them. While the marketplace is currently in a pilot phase, ElevenLabs plans to roll it out more broadly in the coming weeks, allowing users to more widely utilize theAI speech technology.
This financing for ElevenLabs will help it to lead in the field of AI speech synthesis and continue to be competitive in the growing synthetic speech market.