ElevenLabs Takes On OpenAI's Realtime Voice API
ElevenLabs' new realtime voice models lead on speed and reasoning and match OpenAI's API, but trail Google, Grok and OpenAI in head-to-head preference.
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Company — ElevenLabs develops AI voice and audio technology for speech generation, dubbing, narration and conversational agents. Its products serve creators, developers and businesses deploying voice experiences.
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At a glance
ElevenLabs develops AI voice and audio technology for speech generation, dubbing, narration and conversational agents. Its products serve creators, developers and businesses deploying voice experiences.
- Founded
- 2022
- Focus
- Speech generation; voice agents; dubbing; audio
- Business metric
- ARR, as reported by the company
- Reference
- ElevenLabs ↗
Sources checked . Selected company background and milestones.
Company milestones
Revenue, funding, product launches and major company events, newest first. Expand earlier milestones for more history.
Launches Eleven Realtime
ElevenLabs introduces v1 Mini and v1 Max speech-to-speech models for voice agents, available through ElevenAgents and a WebSocket Realtime API.
Source: ElevenLabs ↗Exceeds $500M ARR
ElevenLabs says ARR passed $500 million in the first four months of 2026. The same update revises its disclosed year-end 2025 figure to $350 million; ARR is an annualized run rate.
Source: ElevenLabs ↗Raises $500M at an $11B valuation
The Series D supports voice agents and audio research. This financing announcement initially described year-end 2025 ARR as over $330 million; the later May disclosure gives $350 million.
Source: ElevenLabs ↗Raises $180M Series C
The round, co-led by a16z and ICONIQ Growth, values ElevenLabs at $3.3 billion and brings disclosed funding to $281 million.
Source: ElevenLabs ↗Raises $80M Series B
The company announces an $80 million round and unicorn status, alongside expansion of its voice and dubbing tools.
Source: ElevenLabs ↗Launches its voice platform
ElevenLabs brings its AI voice platform to the public, expanding access to synthesized speech.
Source: ElevenLabs ↗ElevenLabs is founded
The company starts work on AI audio and multilingual voice technology.
Source: ElevenLabs ↗
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