20VC: ElevenLabs Hits $200M ARR: The Untold Story of Europe's Fastest Growing AI Startup | The Real Cost of AI from Talent to Data Centres | How US VCs are in a Different League to Europeans | The Future of Foundation Models with Mati Staniszewski

20VC: ElevenLabs Hits $200M ARR: The Untold Story of Europe's Fastest Growing AI Startup | The Real Cost of AI from Talent to Data Centres | How US VCs are in a Different League to Europeans | The Future of Foundation Models with Mati Staniszewski

Author: Harry Stebbings September 8, 2025 Duration: 1:14:06

Mati Staniszewski is the Co-Founder and CEO of ElevenLabs, the world's leading AI voice platform. Since launching in 2022, ElevenLabs has raised over $350M, most recently at a $3.3BN valuation, making it one of Europe's fastest AI unicorns. The company counts Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and Sequoia Capital among its backers. Today, Mati announces that the company has hit a staggering $200M ARR. ElevenLabs took 20 months to hit $100M ARR. 10 months to hit $200M ARR. Can they do $300M in 5 months…

AGENDA: 

[00:00] $100M in 20 Months?! ElevenLabs Untold Growth Story

[12:20] Are AI Models Already Plateauing—or Just Getting Started?

[14:00] Why OpenAI Can't Beat ElevenLabs 

[17:30] The Talent Wars: How Do You Retain World-Class AI Researchers?

[23:10] PR vs Product: Why Most Startups Botch Their Launch

[36:00] Are U.S. VCs Playing a Different Game Than Europe?

[44:00] The Real Cost of AI: Why ElevenLabs Built Its Own Data Centers

[59:00] Voice Agents = Multi-Billion Dollar Business of the Future?

[01:05:00] Buy OpenAI or Anthropic? Which Foundation Model Wins?

[01:09:30] Europe: Strengths, Weaknesses and What Needs to be Done

 


Hosted by Harry Stebbings, The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) pulls back the curtain on the high-stakes worlds of venture capital and startup building. Each episode is a compact, twenty-minute dive into the minds shaping the future of technology. You’ll hear candid conversations with legendary investors, the very individuals who fund and guide the next generation of companies, featuring voices like Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Beyond the capital, this podcast dedicates time to the founders themselves. Weekly, Stebbings sits down with transformative entrepreneurs such as Spotify's Daniel Ek, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman, unpacking the real journeys behind their iconic companies. The format is direct and focused, cutting straight to the core insights on funding strategies, pitch dynamics, and the personal philosophies that drive success. Tuning into this podcast means gaining an unfiltered perspective from both sides of the table, all delivered in a concise and accessible style that fits into your day.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Podcast Episodes
20VC: Cursor Acquired for $60BN by xAI | Anthropic Hits $1TRN in Secondary Markets | Did Anthropic Just Kill Figma, Adobe and Canva | Rippling Hits $1BN in ARR | Salesforce Goes Headless: Smart or Stupid | Cerebras IPO 2.0 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:40:59
AGENDA: 04:00 — 🤯 Cursor Acquired for $60B?! Breaking down the mind-blowing deal with xAI/SpaceX. 07:00 — 🤝 A Marriage Made in Heaven: Why Cursor and Elon Musk actually make perfect sense. 11:00 — 🏆 Who Won the Deal? The…
20VC: Everyone is Wrong; We Will Have More Developers in Five Years | Why Frontier Labs Will Be Way More Valuable Than They Are Today | Are SaaS Companies Cooked: Which Thrive & Which Die with Aaron Levie, Founder at Box [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:54
Aaron Levie is one of the most forward-thinking public company CEOs when it comes to enterprise adoption of AI. Aaron is the CEO of Box, the enterprise storage company that does over $1BN in revenue but only has a market…
20VC: Jake Paul on Why Traditional VC is Toast and Attention is More Valuable Than Cash | Politics: Will Jake Paul Actually Run for President? | Inside the Payday of Fighting Anthony Joshua and Mike Tyson | with Geoffrey Wu, Co-Founder at Anti-Fund [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:26
Jake Paul is one of the most influential creators of the digital era, with over 70M+ followers across platforms. He transitioned from YouTube stardom to become one of the biggest pay-per-view draws in boxing history with…
20VC: Anthropic Unveils Mythos | SpaceX's Financials Leaked: Is it Worth $2TRN | Meta Debuts Muse Spark: Are They Back in the AI Race | Jason's Critique of Dario Amodei & How OpenAI Could Win the Enterprise Game [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:26:20
AGENDA: 00:00 — Anthropic Unveils Mythos: The Model "Too Good at Hacking" to Release 05:56 — Why Mythos is a Quantum Leap in Cyber Risk 10:11 — The "Boy Who Cried Wolf": Jason's Critique of Dario Amodei 14:00 — The Oppen…
20Sales: ElevenLabs: Why We Set a 20x Sales Quota | How to Structure Sales Compensation Plans | Customer Success: 'Total BS' or Growth Engine? | Building an AI Sales Machine: What Tools & Tactics Must CROs Adopt Today with Carles Reina [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:25:03
Carles Reina is VP of Sales at ElevenLabs, where he was the first investor and fourth employee. Carles has scaled the revenue org from Day 1 to over $350M in just 3 years. Carles is also an active investor with investmen…
20VC: Anthropic Surpasses OpenAI Revenue | OpenAI Acquisition of TBPN: Analysed | OpenAI Management Team Reboot | YC Kicks Delve Out | Mercor Hack and Why Now is the Time for Cyber | Supabase Raising at $10BN & Doug Leone Returns to Sequoia [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:27:16
AGENDA: 03:59 — Anthropic Surpasses OpenAI in Revenue 12:43 — OpenAI Management Reboot 18:24 — OpenAI Buys TBPN 29:00 — SpaceX Files for IPO Targeting $2 Trillion Valuation 37:21 — Doug Leone Returns to Sequoia Capital 4…
20VC: DeepMind's Demis Hassabis on Why AGI is Bigger than the Industrial Revolution | Why LLMs Will Not Commoditise & We Have Not Hit Scaling Laws | Bottlenecks in AI & The Energy Crisis Caused By AI | Whether AI Will Do More to Harm or Help Inequality [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 35:49
Demis Hassabis is the Co-Founder & CEO of Google DeepMind - working on AGI, responsible for AI breakthroughs such as AlphaGo, the first program to beat the world champion at the game of Go; and AlphaFold, which cracked t…
20VC: Hims & Hers: $4.3BN Market Cap on $2.3BN of Revenue: The Comeback | Why Being Public is 10x Better | The Death of the "Strategy" Hire | Why Performance Marketing is Worse than Brand Marketing with Andrew Dudum [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:18
Andrew Dudum is the Founder and CEO of Hims, the company reshaping consumers relationship to healthcare. It has been a rocky ride over the last 6 months, the company is down 66%, their market cap today is $4.3BN on $2.3B…
20VC: Anthropic's $6BN Revenue Month | OpenAI Kills Sora & Hits $100M ARR on Ads | Oura Going Public & Whoop Raises at $10BN | Manus Founders Trapped in China & The Billionaire Tax: Anyone Left in California? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:36
AGENDA: 00:00 — Anthropic's Monster Month: 6 Billion in February Revenue 04:30 — The "Claude Mythos" Leak: 10 Trillion Parameters 11:50 — OpenAI Kills "Sora": A Massive Strategic Own Goal? 14:30 — OpenAI Hits $100M in Ad…