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Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski don’t have much time to play. Their four-year-old AI voice startup, ElevenLabs, currently boasts an $11 billion valuation after raising more than $781 million from investors including Sequoia Capital. The rapid growth has made the pair of cofounders billionaires—each with a net worth of over $1 billion—and ElevenLabs a formidable contender in the AI race.

As the Polish company, now headquartered in London, signs corporate customers like Cisco and Epic Games—competing with the likes of Google and OpenAI to become what we’ve called “the de facto voice of AI”—it has also been quietly building something far less public.

Since its early days, ElevenLabs has been developing a way to help people reclaim their voices (literally) after fighting health conditions such as ALS or cancer.

“We started the program in 2023. Now is the first time we’ll be public about it,” Staniszewski told Forbes. “We wanted to make it very clear that it’s a real thing.”

Dubbed the “1 Million Voices” initiative, the company is committing what it values at $1 billion in free voice restoration technology to 1 million people living with permanent voice loss. Of that ambitious goal, the program has so far assisted 7,000 people through partnerships with nonprofits, and the company says it’s worked with some 780 organizations since its official launch in 2024.

The idea came to ElevenLabs just months after it debuted in 2022. Staniszewski recalls being contacted by someone preparing for surgery who wanted to preserve their voice in case complications left them unable to speak.

“That opened our eyes,” he says. “We can actually do something meaningful where we help people keep their identity.”

The process requires roughly 30 minutes of spoken audio content, drawn from old recordings, videos or voice notes. If only a minute of audio exists, the company replicates it to create as much data as possible. ElevenLabs then works alongside the individuals, and often their families, to fine-tune the AI-generated replica. “That’s probably the most motivating, when you see the happiness of people,” Staniszewski says.

Different people use it in different ways, and with different hardware. Take Lori Cohen, a lawyer and co-chair at Global Litigation at Greenberg Traurig. After losing her voice to an unknown cause in 2022, she had to step away from the courtroom—until she found ElevenLabs. Since 2023, Lori’s very own AI voice, which they call Lola, argues motions on her behalf.

To highlight stories like Cohen’s, ElevenLabs produced an 11-part docuseries, 11 Voices, featuring individuals across the U.S. and U.K. who have used its technology to reclaim their speech.

Staniszewski will premiere the docuseries today at SXSW in Austin, Texas, where he’ll be joined by Rebecca Gayheart Dane, who will be honoring the legacy of her late husband, actor Eric Dane. According to Staniszewski, ElevenLabs had presented Dane with his AI-generated voice just one week before his death from ALS.

As debates around the ethics of AI continue and even intensify, Staniszewski argues that the technology’s potential for good is often overlooked.

“I wouldn’t be building in this space if I didn’t think it’s good for society,” he says.

And beyond medical use cases, ElevenLabs sees voice AI as foundational to the future of technology.

“As we think about the future, three things will happen,” Staniszewski says. “One, all content will be available in audio. Two, language barriers will break. And three, voice will be the interface to the world and the technology around us.”

ElevenLabs previously sat down with Forbes to talk pure business, too. Read our December 2025 cover story here.

More next week,

Zoya & Alex

The Under 30 Summit Is Less Than 60 Days Away. Register Now.

For the first time, Forbes is heading to Phoenix, AZ from April 19–22 to unlock that southwest energy at the 2026 Forbes Under 30 Summit. And we’re celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Under 30 list. You don’t want to miss this. Register today.

The Forbes Billionaires List

Forbes unveiled its latest World’s Billionaires list this week. Who’s the richest individual in the world? You may already know, but no need for guessing games. Check out the full list here.

Lister Lowdown

-Legora, whose Swedish founder Max Junestrand made the Under 30 AI list in 2026 for cofounding the legal AI startup, announced this week a $550 million Series D at a $5.55 billion valuation. The platform is reportedly being used by 800 law firms and legal teams, where Legora is embedded directly into workflows to help with complex court cases. This funding round was led by Accel with participation from Benchmark, Bessemer, General Catalyst, ICONIQ and more.

-Ostro, a software company that connected consumers with doctors and AI-driven answers from medical, legal, and regulatory-approved materials, was acquired by Veeva Systems this week. The deal was valued at $100 million—including both cash and long-term equity. Ostro was founded by Under 30 2023 Healthcare lister Ahmed Elsayyad in 2019.

-Lore, a consumer tech platform founded by Under 30 VC lister Zehra Naqvi, officially opened its beta to the public this month. Their first feature is called Rabbitholes, designed for fans who want to more deeply engage with their fandom of choice to follow questions wherever they lead, all within the Lore platform (taking you down a rabbithole), as opposed to sifting through different questions and fan theories across multiple tabs or searches. This is Lore’s first step in their broader goal of changing how today’s fandoms engage online. (See our interview with her pre-Lore launch in our On Air section below.)

One Minute With Jade Watson

We’re bringing you the scoop on a new Under 30 community member. Up this week: 2024 Media lister Jade Watson. She’s the founder of SickBird Productions, a production startup that works on everything from podcasts, brand campaigns and independent docuseries. This week, she released the pilot episode of her docuseries Follow Her, which includes episodes from multiple different cities across the globe to uncover how women are impacted by technology and digital culture. You can watch the first episode here.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

What was your first job in the media industry? I have been working in this industry since I was 16. I started with a high school co-op where I was working at a sports news station in Toronto. There I helped the newscaster (the woman that was the onscreen journalist) with her scripts. I worked with and shadowed editors, too, and got to oversee what they were doing. But I was also washing dishes and cleaning up around the office and being extra hands where people needed.

What’s a movie or film you think everyone should watch? I do like a good Forrest Gump.

What was your vision when you set out to create SickBird? We focus on highlighting the lives of women in three different pillars: sports and wellness; money and business; and lifestyle, relationships and comedy. This was important to me because women are multi-dimensional. We are more than just, “Oh, you like a funny comedy podcast? Oh, you love an unscripted reality show?”

We love that type of content, don’t get me wrong, but also we need to be educated on money and business. So these pillars highlight that multifaceted perspective that women naturally have, but I don't think they're often served.

What was the first step you had to take to start this company? I’m from Canada originally, so I knew I wanted to start my company and run it in New York and Los Angeles because those are the two largest media markets that I wanted to go after. So I had to pitch my business to the U.S. Embassy when I was 23.

To do so, I needed to create a very clear business plan and then take that to the U.S. government and present it to them. Once they approved it, I was on a five-year visa and I was able to run full speed ahead. But it was within that mandatory visa process that I was really forced to think of everything and get all my ducks in a row, and do everything by the book extremely diligently.

What’s the revenue model for a production company like yours? Our revenue is split by, I would say, 60% brand partnerships and 40% podcast and digital series. Then I take a percentage of our profits and reinvest it into our original IP. I was clear from the beginning about wanting a clear mission, vision, and point of view at SickBird, and that is directly through the things that we do like Follow Her. So those projects we self-fund.

Are there non-negotiables for your morning routine as a founder? I have a really good coffee machine, so that’s great. And I try to always drink my coffee out of a really fun, bright, colorful mug, because it just makes me a little bit happier in the morning.

That brings me to my next question, what is your caffeine of choice? Espresso shots with a little bit of milk.

What is your best productivity hack as a business owner today? Time blocking.

Favorite hobby outside of work? Running and traveling.

Is there an app or a tool that you cannot live without? I actually have Opal, which blocks social media during certain times of my day.

What would you say has been your biggest “pinch me” or “I made it” moment so far? Probably being able to actually release Follow Her. To actually be able to put something out into the world that we believe in. That’s the most exciting thing.

What do you think is the most misunderstood aspect of being a founder? That you’re going to get more time back in your day if you work for yourself.

Any predictions on what the future of the media industry looks like? I think there’s a huge missed market in mid-form content. Really good 7-12 minute content is going to be, in my opinion, a huge boom in 2026.

Best advice for any founder? You should always be stubborn and sure of your goal, but flexible about how you get there.

Under 30 On-Air