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ElevenLabs

Artificial IntelligenceFounded 2022
Reviewed by Swet Parvadiya
Company data updated: October 2026

Founders

Who Founded ElevenLabs?

Mati Staniszewski, Piotr Dabkowski · Founded 2022 · HQ today: London, United Kingdom & New York City, New York, United States

Who founded ElevenLabs?

ElevenLabs was founded by Mati Staniszewski, Piotr Dabkowski in 2022. It is now led by Mati Staniszewski.

Founders
Mati Staniszewski, Piotr Dabkowski
Founded
2022
Headquarters
London, United Kingdom & New York City, New York, United States
Number of founders
2
Current CEO
Mati Staniszewski (since 2022)
Where was ElevenLabs founded?
ElevenLabs was founded in London, United Kingdom in 2022.
When was ElevenLabs founded?
ElevenLabs was founded in 2022.
Who started ElevenLabs?
ElevenLabs was founded by Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski.
How old is ElevenLabs?
ElevenLabs is 4 years old as of 2026.

Founding Story

Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski grew up together in Poland, where foreign films are often 'dubbed' by a single monotone lektor voice reading every character's lines. After careers at Palantir (Staniszewski) and Google (Dabkowski), they founded ElevenLabs in 2022 to make any content available in any language and voice, and opened a public beta in January 2023.

Mati Staniszewski

Background

Studied mathematics at Imperial College London and worked as a deployment strategist at Palantir Technologies before co-founding ElevenLabs.

Role at ElevenLabs

Mati Staniszewski is the Polish-born co-founder and CEO of ElevenLabs. He grew up near Warsaw, studied mathematics at Imperial College London and worked at Palantir before starting ElevenLabs with school friend Piotr Dabkowski in 2022. As CEO he has led the company through its Series B (2024), Series C (2025), $11 billion Series D (February 2026) and $22 billion employee tender (September 2026).

Mateusz "Mati" Staniszewski was born in 1995.

Piotr Dabkowski

Background

Machine learning engineer who studied at the University of Cambridge and previously worked at Google.

Role at ElevenLabs

Piotr Dabkowski is co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of ElevenLabs. He studied at the University of Cambridge, worked as a machine learning engineer at Google and leads the research behind ElevenLabs' speech, transcription and music models.

Piotr Dabkowski was born in 1994. Education: University of Oxford.

Dabkowski was born in December 1994 and is a software engineer.

ElevenLabs: CEO & Leadership History

Full timeline →

Mati Staniszewski

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

2022 – Present

As Co-Founder and CEO, he rapidly scaled the company from a tiny startup into a $1.1 billion unicorn in less than two years, securing massive funding from Andreessen Horowitz.

Piotr Dabkowski

Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer

2022 – Present

As Co-Founder and CTO, he leveraged his previous experience as a Google machine learning engineer to build the absolute most realistic AI voice generator on the market.

Keep researching ElevenLabs

Who Founded ElevenLabs? FAQ

Who founded ElevenLabs in 2022?

ElevenLabs was founded in 2022 by Polish-born technologists Mati Staniszewski (former Palantir strategist) and Piotr Dabkowski (former Google machine learning engineer), who have been best friends since childhood.

How did watching poorly dubbed American movies inspire the founders to create ElevenLabs?

Growing up in Poland in the 1990s and 2000s, the founders watched Hollywood films dubbed by a single monotone male voiceover ('lektor') speaking over all characters. The duo realized that modern artificial intelligence could solve voice dubbing by translating dialogue in the original actor's true voice and emotion.

Where did the ElevenLabs founders study?

Mati Staniszewski studied mathematics at Imperial College London; Piotr Dabkowski studied at the University of Cambridge.

How did the founders launch ElevenLabs' viral public beta in January 2023?

In January 2023, the founders launched ElevenLabs' public beta online. The astonishing realism, emotional depth, and instant 1-minute voice cloning went immediately viral on Twitter and YouTube, attracting over 1 million registered creators in weeks.

Who were ElevenLabs' early investors?

Early backers included Credo Ventures and Concept Ventures; Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross and Andreessen Horowitz co-led the 2023 Series A.

What do ElevenLabs' founders do today?

Mati Staniszewski is CEO and Piotr Dabkowski is CTO.

What was the founders' philosophy regarding ethical voice actor compensation?

The founders recognized that AI voice technology must support human voice actors rather than replace them, designing the Voice Library marketplace so voice professionals could earn passive global royalties from their digital voice models.

What active roles do the founders maintain at ElevenLabs today?

Both founders lead the company full-time: Mati Staniszewski serves as Chief Executive Officer, driving corporate vision, enterprise partnerships, and operations, while Piotr Dabkowski serves as Chief Technology Officer, directing foundational AI research.

Who founded ElevenLabs?

It was founded by Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski. Piotr, a former Google machine learning engineer, is the technical genius behind the product, realizing that modern transformer models could be applied to audio waveforms just as effectively as text.

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Content is for informational purposes only. Not financial advice. Data sourced from SEC filings, annual reports, and public records. See our full disclaimer and methodology.