Mati Staniszewski has taken London-based ElevenLabs to a $22 billion valuation, little more than a decade after moving to the UK to study mathematics at Imperial College London.
The Polish-born entrepreneur went on to begin his technology career in the capital before co-founding ElevenLabs with childhood friend Piotr Dąbkowski in 2022. The company now operates its European headquarters and worldwide operations centre from London.
The latest milestone follows a $300 million employee share sale which has doubled ElevenLabs’ valuation from the $11 billion secured during its Series D funding round in February.
For Staniszewski, it is the latest stage in a career closely tied to the UK technology sector.
After growing up in Poland, he moved to Britain to study mathematics at Imperial before joining Palantir. ElevenLabs says both Staniszewski and Dąbkowski studied at UK universities and began their careers in London before launching the company.
That UK presence has continued to grow alongside the business.
ElevenLabs made London its European headquarters in 2024, describing the capital as central to its global operations. Earlier this year, the company also announced plans to double its UK headcount and expand its London leadership team as part of a partnership with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology focused on the use of voice AI in British public services.
Staniszewski and Dąbkowski originally came up with the idea behind ElevenLabs after growing up in Poland watching American films dubbed into Polish and becoming frustrated with how much of the original performance was lost.
Their company began by developing highly realistic text-to-speech technology and has since expanded into conversational AI, voice agents, dubbing, sound effects and music.
ElevenLabs says enterprise customers now account for 55% of its revenue, while its AI agents are handling more than 15 million conversations every week.
Staniszewski 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. We’re already seeing rapid adoption of expressive voice agents by enterprises and governments, who are deploying them in service of consumers and citizens. As we grow, it’s important to us to let our people share in some of the value they are creating for our customers and the wider world.”
Image credit: Rafał Masłow / Eleven Labs Poland, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cropped from original
