The music industry, especially when it comes to royalties and AI audio, is one of the untapped markets in Europe. And one of the leaders that is transforming the landscape is ElevenLabs, a UK-based unicorn that grabbed $180M Series C in January, raising its valuation to $3.3B.
Yet, the founders are far from Brits. Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski, two high school friends, come from Warsaw, where the story of Elevenlabs started from a simple frustration: the poor quality of dubbed foreign films. The founders achieved great success with their vision, bringing natural (and emotional) voices to the movies, and later relocating to the UK, one of the AI hubs in Europe.
Earlier this month, the startup went one step further and introduced Eleven Music, an AI music generation space that ensures every AI-generated track is ethically licensed for commercial use. You can specify genre, style, language, instrumentation, and even whether vocals are included, generating custom songs in minutes.
What makes Eleven Music stand out?
Unlike many AI music startups caught in legal actions over copyright violations, ElevenLabs partners with leading independent music rights organisations, such as Merlin and Kobalt Music Group. Every AI-generated song is trained on licensed data with revenue-sharing models in place, setting a new ethical standard in AI music creation.
Eleven Music is also democratising music creation for indie creators, YouTubers, game developers, and ad agencies. In fact, ElevenLabs’ Voice Library has already paid out over $2 million in royalties to voice creators. The same model empowers musicians and rights holders with new digital revenue streams.
Meanwhile, ElevenLabs’ technology allows real-time editing of song structure, lyrics, and moods, a handy tool for creative industries with tight production schedules, like advertising and film.
What’s next for ElevenLabs? IPO on the horizon??
After reaching the unicorn status in January, the next step seems to be the IPO. Staniszewski already confirmed that this move will likely happen in the next five years, 2030 being the latest year. The company has also not ruled out the US market for a potential listing.
Industry reports, however, suggest that the IPO window for high-profile AI companies is likely to happen between 2027 and 2029, if the current market growth remains in the same direction.
Looking from the financial perspective, if Elevenlabs maintains its growth trajectory (260% revenue increase year-on-year and over $90 million in ARR, according to the 2024 report), the IPO valuation could reach $10 billion.
