ElevenLabs staff to sell shares at $6.6 billion valuation, Bloomberg News reports

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(Reuters) -ElevenLabs is letting employees sell shares at a valuation of $6.6 billion – double the voice cloning artificial intelligence startup’s previous value, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.

ElevenLabs had raised $180 million in its last funding round in January which gave it a valuation of $3.3 billion at the time.

AI startups engaged in a fierce competition for talent have been increasingly letting employees sell stock as they race to retain and attract top researchers and engineers.

The tender offer will allow staff to sell as much as $100 million in stock, according to the report, and will let employees who have worked at the company for at least a year to cash in on shares.

This would also allow more investors to boost their stake in the company, the report said.

Existing investors Sequoia Capital and Iconiq Growth are leading the deal, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and others, the Bloomberg News report said.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI is also in early-stage discussions about a stock sale that would allow employees to cash out and could value the company at about $500 billion, Reuters has reported.

Bloomberg News cited ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski as saying that the company now has 331 employees, up from 77 a year ago.

Staniszewski also said that in late October 2024 ElevenLabs was bringing in $100 million in annualized recurring revenue and ten months later, it reached $200 million in recurring revenue, according to the report.

The company hopes to reach $300 million in recurring revenue by the end of the year, Bloomberg News reported.

ElevenLabs was co-founded by Piotr Dabkowski and Mati Staniszewski, who have previously worked at Google and Palantir Technologies, respectively.

(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)