AI voice startup ElevenLabs doubles valuation to $22B
TechCrunch Marina Temkin ● Covered by 4 sources
ElevenLabs let staff sell part of their shares at a $22B valuation. It’s a big jump from February and a sign AI startups are using cash-outs to keep people around.
Based on reporting by TechCrunch, Marina Temkin — read the original for the full story.
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ElevenLabs has opened a new way for employees to turn some of their vested equity into cash, and the price tag is loud: $22 billion. That’s double the valuation it got in February, when the voice AI startup raised $500 million.
The move came through a $300 million tender offer, with shares sold to investors rather than in a fresh funding round. Wellington and T. Rowe Price co-led the transaction, the kind of firms that usually buy private-company stock and hang on for the public listing, if it ever comes.
This is also not ElevenLabs’ first rodeo with secondary sales. The four-year-old company has now authorized employee liquidity twice. Earlier, it ran a $100 million tender at a $6.6 billion valuation in September 2025.
Founded in 2022, ElevenLabs built its name on ultra-realistic human voices and sound effects. And with this latest mark, the New York- and London-based company now sits among Europe’s most valuable startups.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
Employee liquidity is becoming the polite way to say “please don’t take your talents elsewhere.” For AI companies, that’s cheaper than pretending retention is solved with beanbags and slogans. The bigger signal is how fast these private valuations are being used as morale management, which is very 2020s and very expensive.
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