AI-Powered Voice Generation Platform ElevenLabs Raises $19M and Launches Detection Tool

ElevenLabs, an AI-powered platform for generating synthetic voices, announced the completion of a $19 million Series A funding round. The round was co-led by entrepreneurs Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, along with Andreessen Horowitz, and included participants such as Creator Ventures, SV Angel, Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger, Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe, Deepmind and Inflection AI co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, and O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly. A source reveals that this investment values ElevenLabs at $99 million post-money, a noteworthy accomplishment considering the startup's launch just over a year ago.

ElevenLabs plans to use the investment to further its research and development in voice AI, while also launching a range of products tailored for specific market verticals. These products will cater to industries such as publishing, gaming, entertainment, and conversational applications, according to co-founder and CEO, Mati Staniszewski.

A recent addition to the ElevenLabs platform is Projects, a workflow for editing and creating long-form spoken content. This enables users to generate dialogue segments or even complete audiobooks without leaving the platform. Staniszewski envisions applications for this technology in multiple commercial domains, such as scalable and multilingual audiobook creation, voicing characters in video games, voicing digital articles, supporting visually impaired individuals in accessing online content, and empowering AI-driven radio.

ElevenLabs' text-to-speech technology allows for the creation of synthetic, cloned, or completely novel AI-generated voices that mimic various genders, ages, and ethnicities. The platform's language-agnostic AI models enable corporate clients to easily adapt and create their own proprietary speech models.

While the platform has gained significant traction due to its high-quality generated voices and generous free tier, it has also faced its share of challenges and controversy. In response to instances of bad actors using the platform to generate malicious content, ElevenLabs has introduced several safety measures, such as limiting voice cloning to paid accounts, banning repeat violators, and launching a new AI detection tool. This tool, called AI Speech Classifier, is now available to selected partners as an API designed to detect whether uploaded audio samples contain AI-generated content from ElevenLabs.

However, concerns arise around the existential threat its technology poses to the livelihood of voice actors. As AI-generated voices become more prevalent, voice actors may witness clients opting for synthetic renditions of their performance, potentially without compensation.

Fueling its ambitious plans for growth, ElevenLabs aims to expand its AI models to voice dubbing and create a system capable of transferring emotions and intonation between languages. With a total of $21 million in funding, ElevenLabs is prepared to compete with major players in the generative voice space, including tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, as well as startups such as Murf, Tavus, Resemble AI, Respeecher, Play.ht, and Lovo.

As no-code platforms gain widespread adoption, some, like AppMaster's no-code platform, have also ventured into the realm of mobile and web app development. These advancements provide opportunities for increased efficiency and cost-effectiveness in application development for various industries.