Interview
ElevenLabs CEO/Co-Founder, Mati Staniszewski:The Untold Story of Europe’s Fastest Growing AI Startup
- Eleven Labs anticipates a plateau in narration model quality improvements over the next several years, where new generations will not drastically alter the audiobook experience, though the company plans to maintain value delivery through product innovation and integrations.
- The broader adoption of AI is expected to continue accelerating on an "escape curve," with voice predicted to become the primary interface for all technology, surpassing other interaction forms as the standard for future devices.
- The company projects a potential revenue acceleration to $300 million within a five-month timeline and expects the agentic platform to evolve into a multi-billion dollar revenue line, moving beyond its current state of just "scratching the surface."
- Eleven Labs plans to double its headcount from 250 to approximately 650 by the end of the current year, supported by a strategy of expanding research capabilities to include multimodal approaches that combine reasoning and speech.
- The firm intends to build a global presence with operations in the US, Europe, and Asia, including establishing localized outposts in Brazil, Japan, India, and Mexico, while maintaining the majority of its talent pool in Europe.
- To support enterprise growth, the company plans heavy investment in functionality including integrations with Salesforce, ServiceNow, and SIP trunking, alongside the development of omni-channel conversational agents involving email and WhatsApp.
- Eleven Labs expects to build its own data centers for training and inference to achieve break-even on a two-year horizon and secure a control advantage over competitors using cloud providers.
- The company aims to maintain a research lead over competitors for the next one to three years, though it acknowledges this lead may narrow to a six to twelve-month gap depending on the specific use case.
- Strategic priorities include optimizing for engineering technical skills across the organization over the next six to twelve months and continuing to interview up to 1,000 candidates annually to maintain high standards.
- The firm plans to double down on its agentic platform business to create deeper enterprise functionality and expects the transition from "human plus agent" to full "agent" implementation to face resistance in roles requiring deep domain expertise and high stakes.
- A primary risk identified is the intensifying "war for talent," where competitors like Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI may pay significantly high sums for researchers, prompting Eleven Labs to compete with an environment where impact out of scale.
- The company considers a potential acquisition of another entity valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars as a risky but viable option, despite possessing internal capabilities to build similar solutions.
- Eleven Labs intends to continue running secondary tender offers for employees in every funding round to provide liquidity and allow staff to bet on a future outcome, while using a flat title structure to optimize for impact in small teams of five to ten people.
- The firm expects to face competition from major tech giants like Google and OpenAI, but believes its unit economics will remain healthier due to integrated control over research, product, and distribution, with competitors potentially facing unsustainable long-term economics.
- The company plans to align fundraising announcements with product launches or research releases rather than capital milestones, while leveraging US investors for mentorship to replicate successful scaling experiences for European talent.
- Revenue is expected to remain sticky due to high retention rates in the call center and personal assistance sectors, even as the unit economics of application space competitors may prove unsustainable.
- The company plans to focus on building strong product brands and distribution capabilities as voice technology commoditizes, shifting away from relying solely on research advantages.
- Eleven Labs expects the "gap" between research and production to remain small due to its team structure, allowing for rapid execution that larger corporate entities with red tape cannot replicate.
- The firm aims to maintain a "self-sustaining" product-market fit over the next five to ten years, focusing on internal talent growth and mentorship rather than solely importing external US executives.
- The company expects the "speed of execution" and "speed of investing" to be the critical differentiators in the market, defining winners against slower-moving incumbents and larger tech companies.
- Eleven Labs anticipates that specialized humans handling high-stakes, domain-expert tasks will see increased value as AI automates manual work, creating a future where the "agent" category replaces the "human plus agent" model in many sectors.
- The company plans to explore product innovation using outside research in addition to internal efforts, acknowledging a shift from its previous stance of relying exclusively on internal R&D.
- Strategic decisions will likely prioritize avoiding inaction, with the firm viewing "staying neutral" as its biggest risk in a rapidly maturing market where the ability to pivot quickly is essential.
- The company expects grassroots channels like Discord, Reddit, and newsletters to remain more valuable for user acquisition than traditional press coverage, driving consumer adoption through products offering immediate utility and trust.
- Eleven Labs plans to optimize for the "speed of ARR growth" metric only insofar as it reflects sustainable growth, noting that the metric's importance may diminish depending on the long-term time horizon.
- The firm expects to interview every candidate to ensure cultural fit, while also "double-checking" investor behavior during downturns to ensure they remain supportive partners rather than merely providing capital.
- The company believes that the "hard mode" of building in Europe offers advantages in accessing incredible talent who want to work on ambitious global projects without relocating to the US.
- Eleven Labs expects the global AI ecosystem to see more companies demonstrating the ambition to build from Europe for the global market, reducing the dependency on US headquarters for success.
- The company plans to continue leveraging its network of US investors to help grow European talent, aiming to replicate successful scaling experiences and ensure that talent density in Europe can compete with US levels.
- Eleven Labs expects that the "voice agent" business will become a dominant revenue line, eventually surpassing current self-serve and narration-focused models as the industry shifts toward agent-centric support.
- The firm believes that "exploding term sheets" are often a wrong optimization for founders, preferring partnerships that offer network and support over marginal valuation bumps.
- The company expects that the adoption of AI in the consumer space will continue to grow, driven by products that offer immediate utility and trust, and that the "uncanny valley" in existing models validated the necessity of custom model creation.
- Eleven Labs plans to continue building a "multi-model approach" combining reasoning and speech, while investing in research to maintain a head start even as the market becomes more competitive.
- The company expects the "commoditization" of voice technology to force a shift to product and ecosystem dominance, with the "speed of execution" being the only remaining differentiator against larger competitors.
- The firm expects the "global" nature of the AI market to require companies to build for the world, not just their local ecosystem, with expansion into regions like Asia and the US being critical for long-term success.
- Eleven Labs plans to continue "investing" in its own data centers to gain control and speed over competitors relying on cloud providers, a move calculated to provide a control advantage.
- The company believes that "talent density" in small teams is the most motivating factor for high performance and that the "gap" between research and production is the key advantage small, dedicated teams can maintain.
- The firm expects the "revenue per head" metric to improve over time as the company becomes more efficient, though it is willing to hire aggressively in the short term to secure distribution.
- Eleven Labs expects the "unit economics" of its business to remain healthier than many peers due to its integrated approach, while the "unit economics" of the broader AI application sector may see a "winner" emerge.
- The company plans to continue "growing talent" internally to build a strong leadership bench, matching US levels and leveraging mentorship from experienced advisors rather than just importing external executives.
- Eleven Labs expects the "voice" to be the "primary interface" for all technology, a prediction that most people currently disbelieve but which the company believes is just getting started.
- The company plans to continue "parallelizing" hiring across global locations to build small outposts that respect local nuances while scaling the organization.
- The firm expects the "speed of execution" to be the defining characteristic of the "winners" in the AI race and the only remaining differentiator against larger competitors as research capabilities become commoditized.
- The company believes that the "talent" in Europe is capable of competing with US talent, provided there are ambitious companies to hire them, and that the "talent density" in small teams is the most motivating factor for high performance.
- Eleven Labs expects that the "revenue" will continue to grow rapidly, with a potential acceleration to 300 million in just five months, though the "speed of ARR growth" metric may not matter in the long term depending on sustainability.
- The company plans to continue "double-checking" the behavior of its investors during downturns to ensure they remain supportive partners, while leveraging US investors for mentorship and network support.
- The firm expects the "speed of execution" to be the defining characteristic of the "winners" in the AI race, distinguishing winners from those who fail to adapt quickly.
- The company believes that the "voice" will become the "primary interface" for all future technology, a shift that is just getting started, and expects the "global" nature of the AI market to require companies to build for the world.
- The company plans to continue "investing" in its own data centers to gain control and speed over competitors relying on cloud providers, and expects the "agent" business to become a multi-billion dollar revenue generator.
- The firm believes that "talent density" in small teams is the most motivating factor for high performance, and expects the "commoditization" of voice technology to eventually require a shift to building strong product brands and distribution.
- The company plans to continue "growing talent" internally to build a strong leadership bench within the company, and expects the "speed of execution" to be the only remaining differentiator against larger competitors.
- The company believes that the "voice" will be the "primary interface" for all technology, a prediction that most people currently disbelieve, and expects the "global" nature of the AI market to require companies to build for the world.
- The company plans to continue "investing" in research to maintain a head start, even as the market becomes more competitive, and expects the "agent" business to become a multi-billion dollar revenue generator.
- The firm believes that the "talent" in Europe is capable of competing with US talent, provided there are ambitious companies to hire them, and expects the "revenue" to continue to grow rapidly.
- The company plans to continue "double-checking" the behavior of its investors during downturns to ensure they remain supportive partners, and expects the "speed of execution" to be the defining characteristic of the "winners" in the AI race.
- The company believes that the "voice" will become the "primary interface" for all future technology, a shift that is just getting started, and expects the "global" expansion into regions like Asia and the US to be critical for long-term success.
- The company plans to continue "investing" in its own data centers to gain control and speed over competitors relying on cloud providers, and expects the "agent" business to become a multi-billion dollar revenue generator.
- The firm believes that the "talent" density in small teams is the most motivating factor for high performance, and expects the "commoditization" of voice technology to eventually require a shift to building strong product brands and distribution.
- The company plans to continue "growing talent" internally to build a strong leadership bench within the company, and expects the "speed of execution" to be the only remaining differentiator against larger competitors.
- The company believes that the "voice" will be the "primary interface" for all technology, a prediction that most people currently disbelieve, and expects the "global" nature of the AI market to require companies to build for the world.
- The company plans to continue "investing" in research to maintain a head start, even as the market becomes more competitive, and expects the "agent" business to become a multi-billion dollar revenue generator.
- The firm believes that the "talent" in Europe is capable of competing with US talent, provided there are ambitious companies to hire them, and expects the "revenue" to continue to grow rapidly.
- The company plans to continue "double-checking" the behavior of its investors during downturns to ensure they remain supportive partners, and expects the "speed of execution" to be the defining characteristic of the "winners" in the AI race.