Fundraising FoxMateusz Jakub Staniszewski
InvestorUnicorn founderCo-founder at ElevenLabs
London, United Kingdom
FoundedElevenLabs$11B
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About
Polish-British technology founder who pairs product and enterprise deployment experience with an unusually long-running technical partnership. Staniszewski and high-school friend Piotr Dąbkowski turned weekend experiments and frustration with one-voice Polish dubbing into ElevenLabs, then grew it from a 2023 speech beta into a broad audio-and-agents platform. His public record emphasizes focus, human-level expressive speech, language access, responsible provenance, and translating frontier models into products used at scale.
Beyond investing
- Founded
- Staniszewski and Dąbkowski experimented together while employed at Palantir and Google. An accent-detection project opened the audio space in early 2021; the sharper dubbing insight came later in 2021 when a Polish-language film again exposed the limitations of single-narrator voiceover.
- Awards
- Named with Dąbkowski to Forbes' 2024 Europe Technology list. Selected as one of TIME's 100 most influential people in AI for 2025.
- Family
- In a 2023 first-person profile, he thanked the cofounders' partners, identified only as Florence and Elli without assigning which partner to which founder, and their families for encouraging them to start ElevenLabs. No further family detail was used.
- More
- Born in January 1995 and raised in a town outside Warsaw, he moved into Warsaw for high school and later to the UK for university. Companies House records British and Polish nationalities and residence in England; Forbes lists Polish citizenship. ElevenLabs launched its public beta on January 23, 2023 after raising a $2 million pre-seed, initially prioritizing context-aware text-to-speech for creators while retaining multilingual dubbing as the long-term goal. Under the cofounders, ElevenLabs announced a $19 million Series A in June 2023, $180 million Series C at a $3.3 billion valuation in January 2025, and $500 million Series D at an $11 billion valuation in February 2026; the Series D announcement put cumulative funding at $781 million. The company closed 2025 above $330 million ARR and reported crossing $500 million ARR in the first four months of 2026, attributing acceleration to enterprise voice-agent deployments. These are company-reported figures, not audited financial statements. TIME highlighted ElevenLabs' work restoring an AI voice for U.S. Representative Jennifer Wexton and, with James Earl Jones' estate, powering an interactive Darth Vader experience in Fortnite. These illustrate Staniszewski's stated ambition to make voice useful for both access and creative expression.
From Mateusz's own website — common ground for a warm intro.
Founder at ElevenLabs
Intro paths
In turn, Mateusz can intro founders to ElevenLabs's investors below.
ElevenLabs's investors · 53
Co-founders at ElevenLabs
Co-founder at ElevenLabs
Intro paths
In turn, Mateusz can intro founders to ElevenLabs's investors below.
ElevenLabs's investors · 53
Co-founders at ElevenLabs
Investments
Board seats
Klarna Group plc
Investor
AnamGamgeeLATOLovableMediSearchOboePocketPraxis RoboticsSalesPatriotStillaVitvio
Per curated public sources.
Investment themes
5 documented themes from Mateusz's essays, talks and portfolio, grouped by what they say about founders.
▶More themes5
Voice as a primary computer interface2025
He argues that speech carries emotion, intonation, and imperfection that text discards, and expects voice to become a natural interface for technology.
For founders: A consistent product worldview, not a documented personal investment screen.
Focus over trend-following2023
His explicit early advice was to reject attractive side paths, avoid chasing whatever is fashionable, and stay focused on a long-term conviction.
For founders: Directly stated operating advice from a first-person founder profile.
Research translated into creator and enterprise products2026
ElevenLabs combines frontier audio models with self-serve creative tools, APIs, and production-grade enterprise agents; Staniszewski describes the model-product intersection as central.
For founders: Shows his preference for coupling specialized research with fast productization and customer deployment.
Provenance, moderation, and informed use2025
He frames safety as a layered product problem: trace outputs to accounts, moderate text and voices for fraud and child safety, help users identify synthetic content, and collaborate with researchers and security institutes.
For founders: A documented governance position tied to ElevenLabs' highest-risk capabilities.
Language and ability should not block information2023
From the first beta onward, he presented the mission as making spoken content available in any language and voice, with accessibility use cases later including synthetic voice restoration and multilingual public services.
For founders: A durable mission that links the original dubbing problem to education, accessibility, and public-service deployment.
Podcasts & interviews
featuring Mateusz Jakub StaniszewskiTraining Data: Mati Staniszewski
Sequoia Capital · sequoiacap.com
ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski on Darth Vader, Competition and Preventing Misuse
TIME · time.com
Mati Staniszewski: The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2025
TIME · time.com
Voice-generating platform ElevenLabs raises $19M, launches detection tool
TechCrunch · techcrunch.com
Mati Staniszewski (#047)
Warm Intro · warmintro.substack.com
Writing
First-party reflection on meeting Dąbkowski at age fifteen at Warsaw's Kopernik 33rd high school and building the company across Poland and the UK.
Staniszewski-authored business update reporting ARR, enterprise demand, team scale, investors, and an employee tender offer.
Cofounder-authored account of the company's financial scale, product lines, agent strategy, international expansion, and IPO ambition.
Company financing and strategy announcement authored by Staniszewski.
Frequently asked questions
- What is Mati Staniszewski's full legal name?
- UK Companies House records him as Mateusz Jakub Staniszewski. He publicly uses Mati Staniszewski.
- What did Mati Staniszewski do before ElevenLabs?
- After mathematics at Imperial and organizing Mathscon, he worked in product-oriented roles at Opera Software and BlackRock, including Aladdin Wealth, then spent October 2018 to January 2022 as a Palantir deployment strategist.
- How did ElevenLabs start?
- Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski were long-time friends who built weekend projects while at Palantir and Google. An accent-detection experiment and renewed frustration with Poland's single-narrator dubbing led them toward expressive speech and automated dubbing; they left their jobs and founded ElevenLabs in 2022.
- How are the ElevenLabs cofounder roles divided?
- Public sources describe Staniszewski as the CEO and product/business leader and Dąbkowski as the research and engineering leader, although Forbes notes that the company historically avoided rigid traditional titles.
- Does Mati Staniszewski invest personally?
- Yes. Company and lead-investor announcements name him as an angel in Anam, Lovable, VitVio, Oboe, Stilla, and Pocket. No reliable first-person thesis or personal check-size range was found, and ElevenLabs' own investors are not treated as his investments.
- What is his public position on voice-AI safety?
- He advocates layered safeguards: account-level provenance, text and voice moderation, synthetic-audio detection, clear disclosure when users interact with AI, and research partnerships. He frames the challenge as expanding access for good actors while constraining fraud and abuse.
- What boards does he serve on?
- He is an active director of ELEVEN LABS LTD and joined the board of Klarna Group PLC on May 13, 2025.
- Who is Mateusz Jakub Staniszewski?
- Polish-British technology founder who pairs product and enterprise deployment experience with an unusually long-running technical partnership. Staniszewski and high-school friend Piotr Dąbkowski turned weekend experiments and frustration with one-voice Polish dubbing into ElevenLabs, then grew it from a 2023 speech beta into a broad audio-and-agents platform. His public record emphasizes focus, human-level expressive speech, language access, responsible provenance, and translating frontier models into products used at scale.
- Where does Mateusz Jakub Staniszewski work?
- Mateusz Jakub Staniszewski is Co-founder of ElevenLabs.
- What companies did Mateusz Jakub Staniszewski found?
- Mateusz Jakub Staniszewski founded ElevenLabs.
- What boards does Mateusz Jakub Staniszewski sit on?
- Mateusz Jakub Staniszewski holds tracked board seats at Klarna Group plc.
- What companies has Mateusz Jakub Staniszewski invested in?
- Investments tracked here include Anam, Gamgee, LATO, Lovable, MediSearch, Oboe, Pocket, Praxis Robotics, SalesPatriot, Stilla, Vitvio.
- What awards has Mateusz Jakub Staniszewski received?
- Named with Dąbkowski to Forbes' 2024 Europe Technology list. Selected as one of TIME's 100 most influential people in AI for 2025.
- What has Mateusz Jakub Staniszewski written?
- Mateusz Jakub Staniszewski has 4 tracked posts on elevenlabs.io, including "Homecoming: bringing the ElevenLabs Summit to Warsaw", "ElevenLabs crosses $500M ARR as it welcomes new investors", "ElevenLabs raises $500M Series D at $11B valuation", and 1 more.
Founder mafias
Imperial College London mafia463
Also came through, then founded or led a company.
BlackRock mafia74
Also came through, then founded or led a company.
BlackRock mafia54
Also came through, then founded or led a company.
About this profile. Compiled from public sources — ElevenLabs's own website, press coverage and public professional profiles — and summarised by Fundraising Fox; every fact is kept with where it came from. Spotted an error, or would rather not be listed? Email privacy@fundraisingfox.com · How we build profiles · Your rights