ElevenLabs says a $300m employee tender values it at $22bn, double its February Series D

ElevenLabs says it has "recently closed a $300 million employee tender offer that values ElevenLabs at $22 billion, double our valuation at our Series D in February", in a company blog post published on 30 September 2026.

What ElevenLabs announced

• Size and price: a $300 million employee tender offer at a $22 billion valuation, according to the company.
• Who led it: "The round was led by Wellington and T. Rowe Price, long-term institutional investors with the experience our next stage of growth requires", ElevenLabs says. TechCrunch describes the two as having "co-led" the transaction.
• New names on the register: "As part of the tender, EQT, Goldman Sachs, GIC, OTPP, Sapphire Ventures, and BDT & MSD invested in ElevenLabs for the first time, alongside existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, ICONIQ, D.E. Shaw, Evantic, DISRUPTIVE, and Alkeon."
• Why: chief executive Mati Staniszewski is quoted as saying: "As we grow, it's important to us to let our people share in some of the value they are creating for our customers and the wider world." The post adds that the company is "committed to giving our team regular opportunities for liquidity".

The post does not give a price per share, how many employees sold, or how the $300 million was split between buyers.

A tender offer is not a fundraise

City AM reports that the tender "allows employees and existing shareholders to sell stock rather than raising fresh cash for the company". TechCrunch puts it as giving "employees an opportunity to sell their shares to investors".

ElevenLabs and TechCrunch describe the sellers as employees; City AM also mentions existing shareholders. On our reading, the $300 million goes to the people selling shares, not to ElevenLabs itself, which is City AM's point that the deal raises no fresh cash for the company. The $22 billion figure is, on our reading, the per-share price paid in the sale applied across all of the company's shares (ElevenLabs does not disclose that price), and it is set in a private transaction rather than on a public market. ElevenLabs' own post does not say whether any new shares were issued.

How it compares with February

ElevenLabs' Series D announcement, dated 4 February 2026, says: "This $500 million funding round values ElevenLabs at $11 billion, more than 3x its valuation one year ago." The round was led by Sequoia Capital, according to that post. Unlike the tender announced this week, that was money raised by the company.

This is also not ElevenLabs' first employee tender; TechCrunch calls it "the second time that four-year-old ElevenLabs has authorized a secondary transaction for employees". In a post dated 8 September 2025 it said it was "conducting the $100 million tender at a valuation of $6.6 billion", led by existing investors Sequoia and ICONIQ.

The growth figures, as ElevenLabs gives them

All of the following are the company's own figures, from the 30 September post:

• "enterprise now accounting for 55% of our revenue"
• "Our agents now handle more than 15 million conversations every week, up 3x since February"
• "Over the same period, ElevenAgents' ARR has increased more than 3x" (ElevenAgents is its conversational agents platform)
• Its technology is "used in daily operations at five of the world's ten largest tech companies, five of the ten largest insurers, and four of the ten largest telecoms"

The post gives no figure for total revenue or total annual recurring revenue. The February Series D post said ElevenLabs "closed 2025 with over $330 million in ARR". The tender post also refers to the company's new Eleven v4 speech models; we covered that launch in ElevenLabs releases Eleven v4 speech models; v4 leads one Artificial Analysis arena and sits second on another.

The UK angle

City AM calls ElevenLabs "London-based" and reports that London "remains its largest base"; TechCrunch describes it as "New York- and London-based". In June ElevenLabs said it would "move into a new London headquarters, which is triple the size of our existing office, and double our UK headcount to 200 people". City AM reports the new valuation at about £16bn, and cites the Hurun UK Unicorn Index, published in July, as having put ElevenLabs at around £8.5bn.

Why it matters

On our reading, the deal tells you what a group of large investors were willing to pay for existing ElevenLabs shares, and it lets staff turn some paper wealth into cash without the company going public. City AM reports that it raises no fresh cash for the company, and the growth figures behind it are the company's own. TechCrunch says the offering is "part of a growing trend among fast-growing AI startups that use employee liquidity as a retention tool to prevent staff from leaving for competitors."