ElevenLabs doubles valuation to $22bn in US-led employee share sale
The London and New York-headquartered AI audio company completed a $300 million employee tender led by Wellington and T. Rowe Price as enterprise adoption grows.
ElevenLabs has completed a $300 million employee tender offer at a $22 billion valuation, doubling the price set in its February funding round and strengthening the British AI audio company’s ties to US institutional investors. Wellington and T. Rowe Price led the transaction, announced on September 30.
The London and New York-headquartered business is bringing more large investors onto its shareholder register as its conversational-agent platform gains enterprise customers. But the transaction is a secondary share sale, not a fresh capital raise: proceeds go to shareholders selling their holdings rather than into the company’s operating budget.
A deeper US investor base
Goldman Sachs, GIC, EQT, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Sapphire Ventures and BDT & MSD invested in ElevenLabs for the first time through the tender. Existing backers including Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed and ICONIQ also participated.
Wellington had already joined the company’s Series D at its third close in May. That round, initially announced in February at $500 million, valued ElevenLabs at $11 billion. The new transaction therefore establishes a substantially higher valuation without representing another primary financing round.
For ElevenLabs’ US ambitions, the significance is financial and strategic rather than a new physical foothold. The company already has a New York headquarters alongside London. This announcement deepens its American investor relationships; it does not announce a new US office or a dedicated US expansion budget.
Enterprise voice agents drive adoption
Enterprise customers now account for 55% of revenue, according to company figures reported by Music Business Worldwide and The Next Web. ElevenAgents, its conversational-agent platform, handles more than 15 million conversations a week—three times February’s volume.
Stripe, Deutsche Telekom and Admiral have rolled out its agents since February, as have the governments of Ukraine and Greece, The Next Web reported. Those deployments show the business extending beyond audio-generation tools into customer-facing services for companies and public institutions.
In May, ElevenLabs said it had crossed $500 million in annual recurring revenue, up from $350 million at the end of 2025. It did not provide an updated company-wide total with the tender announcement. Music Business Worldwide reported that ElevenAgents’ annual recurring revenue had more than tripled since February.
The enterprise figures provide commercial context for the higher valuation, but they do not establish how much revenue comes from the United States. Neither report supplied a geographic revenue breakdown.
Liquidity in a competitive hiring market
The tender is ElevenLabs’ third employee liquidity event since September 2025. It follows a $100 million offer at a $6.6 billion valuation that month and another $100 million tender alongside the Series D in May. Headcount has risen to more than 800, from 530 reported in May.
“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,” co-founder and chief executive Mati Staniszewski said in the announcement, as quoted by both publications.
The Next Web, citing an interview with Sifted, reported that Staniszewski sees the tender as a way to recruit and retain researchers while competing with larger AI companies. He also wants ElevenLabs ready for a possible stock market listing within two to two and a half years. That is a readiness target, not a confirmed flotation timetable or venue.
A broader audio strategy
ElevenLabs also competes in AI-generated music. It entered that market in August 2025 with licensing agreements from Merlin and Kobalt, subsequently adding Believe and a multi-year Universal Music Group agreement announced on September 10.
Its $22 billion valuation is now more than four times the $5.4 billion valuation music-generation rival Suno reached in June, although ElevenLabs’ business spans both music and enterprise voice agents. The next test is whether that broader product portfolio and growing institutional backing translate into sustained commercial growth—not simply another increase in its private-market valuation.
