The world of AI is evolving at lightning speed, and while many startups emerge with bold ambitions, only a few manage to break through. Approximately 90% of AI startups fail within their first year; given that there are around 70,000 AI companies worldwide, with approximately 25% based in the United States, this high failure rate translates to tens of thousands of ambitious ideas disappearing before they can make a significant impact. Thus, founders and future founders face a tough question: What truly makes an AI startup succeed?
To explore this and other questions, we’ll dive into the story of one company that found the right answers — ElevenLabs. Its journey holds valuable lessons for anyone looking to build a successful AI startup. We will discover what separates a billion-dollar AI startup from a forgotten idea and how ElevenLabs seized key opportunities and executed a successful strategy. Ready to dive in?
Getting a brilliant idea
After writing so many inspiring stories for Kitrum’s blog, we have come to a powerful conclusion — the best AI startup ideas don’t just appear out of thin air — they emerge from deep expertise, firsthand experience, and a keen eye for inefficiencies. Many of today’s most successful AI companies were born at the intersection of technical skill and real-world problems. So, what are some of the principles of getting a brilliant idea?
Pushing boundaries
The most promising ideas often come from those who push boundaries in their domain. Instead of chasing trends, successful founders immerse themselves in a field and discover what’s missing. Working within an industry often reveals inefficiencies that AI can solve. Some of the biggest AI startups today started with founders spotting problems in their previous jobs. For example, Dario Amodei, the CEO and founder of Anthropic, left OpenAI to build a safer AI, which he believed he couldn’t do at his previous place of work.
AI in processes automation
Another area of finding an idea for a startup is automating processes. AI thrives in industries with high-volume, tedious tasks. Whether it’s customer support, procurement, or data processing, founders often identify opportunities by looking at where people spend hours on monotonous work. Simon Kalouche, CEO of Nimble, created a robotics startup that uses AI-powered automation to streamline warehouse fulfillment, solving inefficiencies in logistics.
Solving a clear market need
Many breakthrough startups emerge when founders spot gaps before others do or identify a real-world problem (but truly existing problems, not artificially made up — that’s crucial to highlight). Canva’s CEO, Melanie Perkins, created Canva to help people access and use simple tools for designing materials for their businesses. Ivan Zhao, CEO of Notion, built Notion to organize everything in an all-in-one workspace. And frankly speaking, this list could go on and on (just look at the Inspiring Stories section in Kitrum’s blog to see how many successful founders built their startups by identifying real-world problems.)
ElevenLabs’s brilliant idea
Now, another perfect example of pushing the boundaries and achieving product-market fit in action is ElevenLabs, a leader in AI voice generation. Established in 2022 by ex-Google engineer Piotr Dąbkowski and former Palantir strategist Mati Staniszewski, ElevenLabs has rapidly emerged as a frontrunner in AI-generated speech technology.
The team noticed a major gap in the market — existing text-to-speech (TTS) solutions lacked realistic, human-like voices. The pain point was that most AI-generated voices sounded robotic, monotonous, and unnatural, making them unsuitable for real-world applications like audiobooks, content creation, and customer service. While speech AI had advanced, no company had truly mastered lifelike voice synthesis at scale. With advancements in deep learning, NLP, and generative AI, they saw a way to create the most realistic AI voices ever built.
says Mati Staniszewski at the Slush event in 2024. Building the right team is a key
The co-founders of ElevenLabs, Piotr Dąbkowski, and Mati Staniszewski, are a great example of diverse expertise combined with a shared vision for innovation. Mati Staniszewski earned a First-Class Honours degree in Mathematics from Imperial College London. His career began at Opera Software, where he worked in Business Intelligence, gaining experience in data-driven decision-making across Oslo and London. He then joined BlackRock as part of the Product Development team, focusing on financial solutions and investment technology. In 2018, he moved to Palantir Technologies as a Deployment Strategist, where he spent nearly four years working on complex data integration and analytics projects. These diverse experiences laid the foundation for his entrepreneurial journey, leading him to co-found ElevenLabs in 2022.
Meanwhile, Piotr Dabkowski studied Engineering at the University of Oxford, earning a BA with Distinction, before completing an MPhil in Advanced Computer Science at the University of Cambridge, where he conducted research on real-time image saliency, later published at NeurIPS 2017. His professional journey began with software engineering internships at Opera Software and Google, where he worked on machine learning-driven user data analysis and automation. After a brief stint at Tessian, he returned to Google as a full-time Software Engineer in Zürich, focusing on AI and large-scale systems for nearly four years. In 2022, leveraging his expertise in artificial intelligence, he co-founded ElevenLabs to revolutionize voice synthesis and accessibility through cutting-edge AI technology.
Mati’s expertise in data analytics, finance, and strategic deployment, combined with Piotr’s deep knowledge of AI, ML, and large-scale systems, created the perfect combination for developing advanced voice synthesis technology.
Leveraging the right technology at the right time
Having the right idea is great, but timing is everything. Have you ever heard of WebTV? It aimed to bring the internet to televisions, allowing users to browse the web on their TV screens. But in the late ‘90s, internet speeds were slow, and people weren’t ready for web browsing on TVs. The hardware was clunky, and broadband wasn’t widespread yet. However, smart TVs became mainstream in the 2010s once internet speeds and streaming services caught up.
This proves that you can have an incredible product, but if the market isn’t ready for it, you’ll struggle. On the flip side, if you launch at the perfect moment — when demand is rising and technology is advancing — you can ride the wave of innovation straight to success.
That’s exactly what ElevenLabs did. The startup took advantage of major breakthroughs in AI and deep learning just as they were reaching mainstream adoption. Instead of just creating another text-to-speech tool, they pushed the boundaries of what was possible, developing:
- Context-aware speech synthesis that understands tone and emotion;
- Hyper-realistic voice cloning that maintains expressive qualities;
- Multilingual AI voices that expand accessibility across industries.
By launching in 2022, right when AI was exploding in popularity, ElevenLabs positioned itself as a leader in the synthetic speech revolution. If they had launched too early, the technology might not have been advanced enough. Too late, and they would’ve been playing catch-up with competitors.
The takeaway? Timing and execution matter as much as the technology itself. ElevenLabs didn’t just build great AI — they launched it at the perfect moment to make a real impact.
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Securing strong funding and investor backing
Let’s be real — no matter how brilliant your idea is, without funding, things can stall fast. You might have the best AI tech or the most game-changing product, but if you don’t have the capital to scale, hire talent, and market effectively, it’s tough to turn a great concept into a thriving business.
That’s where securing the right investors makes all the difference. It’s not just about the money — it’s also about strategic partnerships, credibility, and access to a network that can open doors. When big-name investors back a startup, it signals confidence in its vision and potential
ElevenLabs nailed this aspect early on. Moreover, ElevenLabs is the company investors are literally chasing. Just listen to this: Bryan Kim, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), was so determined not to miss out on investing in ElevenLabs that he booked the last flight from San Francisco to London at the last minute.
says Bryan Kim, sitting alongside Mati Staniszewski at the Slush event. Generally, since its founding in 2022, the company has raised several funding rounds, allowing it to scale rapidly. Here’s what we know about its funding journey:
- In January 2023, they announced securing a $2 million pre-seed funding round;
- In June 2023, ElevenLabs secured a $19 million Series A funding round, valuing the company at approximately $100 million;
- On January 22, 2024, ElevenLabs secured $80 million in Series B funding, bringing the company’s total valuation to $1.1 billion.
- Series C (January 2025): This was the big one — $180 million raised at a massive $3.3 billion valuation, led by top VC firms, including Andreessen Horowitz. With this funding, ElevenLabs has the resources to further innovate, expand globally, and solidify its position as a market leader.
With this kind of backing, ElevenLabs isn’t just surviving — it’s thriving. And that’s a key lesson for any startup: securing strong funding isn’t just about getting cash; it’s about setting up a foundation for long-term success.
Ruthless focus on product quality
Startups often fail when they spread themselves too thin. ElevenLabs concentrated on making the highest-quality AI voices on the market rather than trying to build multiple AI tools at once. Their dedication to perfecting one thing exceptionally well helped them dominate their niche.
says Mati Staniszewski during the interview at the Slush. This commitment to product quality over rapid expansion is reflected in ElevenLabs’ success. They concentrated on developing AI voices that were not only technically advanced but also incredibly lifelike, setting a high bar in the industry.
The bottom line
The path to building a billion-dollar AI startup is defined by a few key principles: identifying real market needs, pushing technological boundaries, and securing the right funding. Timing, execution, and a relentless focus on product quality and innovation are also crucial. Founders who navigate these elements and build the right team turn great ideas into industry-leading businesses.
The rise of ElevenLabs exemplifies this journey. It’s a masterclass in innovation, timing, and execution — identifying a critical gap, assembling a visionary team, and harnessing AI’s full potential to redefine human-like speech. Their genius wasn’t just building cutting-edge technology and knowing when and how to launch it. The main lesson? Billion-dollar startups aren’t born from ideas alone; they emerge at the intersection of necessity, mastery, and the courage to push beyond the possible.
