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ElevenLabs in Talks for Share Sale at $22 Billion Valuation
ElevenLabs, the AI voice company co-founded by Poles, is in early talks on a secondary share sale that would value it at $22 billion, twice its valuation from a February funding round.
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ElevenLabs, an AI voice and audio generation company founded by Poles Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski, is in early talks with investors about a share sale at a $22 billion valuation. The news was reported by Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter.
A Secondary Sale, Not a New Round
Unlike a traditional funding round, the planned transaction would take the form of a tender offer, a secondary sale. That means current employees and early investors could sell part of their holdings to outside investors, without new capital flowing directly into the company. This structure lets the company delay a full IPO decision while still giving employees and early shareholders liquidity.
According to reports, the deal could close as early as September 2026 if talks proceed as planned.
A Rapid Rise in Valuation
The pace at which ElevenLabs' valuation has climbed over the past two years is unusual even by AI industry standards. The company was valued at $3.3 billion in January 2025, $6.6 billion in September 2025, $11 billion in February 2026, and talks are now underway to double that figure to $22 billion. The February Series C round of $500 million was led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Iconiq, as well as new funds such as Lightspeed.
The rising valuation has tracked rising revenue. The company reached roughly $330 million in annual recurring revenue in February 2026, and management has said it took just five months to go from $200 million to $300 million in ARR.
From Voice to a Full Audio Stack
ElevenLabs started out as a voice generation and cloning tool, but the company has steadily expanded into dubbing, music, APIs, and customer service agents. The goal is to become a full technology stack for AI-driven audio and conversation, used in publishing, advertising, customer service, and enterprise software. Revenue is currently split nearly evenly between consumer and business customers, and management expects the business share to grow to 70 percent by the end of 2027.
The company employs about 400 people across offices in London, Warsaw, and New York. CEO Mati Staniszewski has previously said the company wants to be ready for a stock market debut within two to three years.
What It Means for Poland
ElevenLabs remains the largest company with Polish roots in the global AI race, and its Warsaw office is one of the company's three main hubs alongside London and New York. A potential $22 billion valuation would place ElevenLabs among the most valuable private tech companies in the world, alongside giants like OpenAI and Anthropic, and would add to the case that Polish founders can build companies of global scale right at the center of the AI race.
Talks are at an early stage and could still change or fall through, as is often the case with this type of secondary transaction. Still, the scale and pace of the valuation increase show just how much appetite investors currently have for companies in the audio and voice AI sector.
Sources: Bloomberg (bloomberg.com), Sifted (sifted.eu), The Next Web (thenextweb.com)
