Carles Reina, vice chairman of income at Eleven Labs, shared why he invested within the AI firm.
Eleven Labs
The angel investor who backed a billion-dollar AI startup when it was nonetheless in its infancy stated he determined to put money into the corporate after simply half-hour of assembly considered one of its founders.
Carles Reina first determined to put money into AI voice startup Eleven Labs in 2022, an organization that makes a speciality of superior text-to-speech and voice cloning know-how.
Co-founded in 2022 by Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski, Eleven Labs has gone on to boost $180 million at a valuation of $3.3 billion, in its Sequence C funding earlier this 12 months.
Then in September, the corporate introduced it was letting staff promote shares at a $6.6 billion valuation.
Nevertheless, earlier than Eleven Labs even had a concrete product, Reina determined to take an opportunity on the agency after assembly Staniszewski, who was working at Palantir Applied sciences on the time.
“I met Mati when he was nonetheless at Palantir,” Reina informed CNBC Make It in an interview. “We began speaking, and inside half-hour of the primary dialog, I informed him, ‘How a lot cash would you like?'”
Reina defined that earlier than the launch of ChatGPT, voice AI hadn’t garnered a lot consideration as a result of huge tech corporations like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft all had text-to-speech merchandise, however they hadn’t actually taken off.
“With ElevenLabs nobody was voice AI, actually nobody needed to offer [them] cash. No VCs needed to really again ElevenLabs, again within the early days on the pre-seed spherical. So these are the kind of industries that I actually like, in order that I can get in earlier than everybody else,” he stated.
Reina has made 74 angel investments over the previous eight years, together with Revolut, Volumetric, Elroy Air, and Speckle. He now works for Eleven Labs as a vice chairman of income.
He stated he all the time tries to establish industries that different traders should not taking note of: “I’ve finished [invested in] largely AI earlier than it was attractive. I’ve finished robotics earlier than it was attractive as properly.”
The No.1 trait to observe for in founders
Reina focuses on investing in pre-seed corporations — these with an concept, however usually with no totally developed product. This implies figuring out key traits in founders that point out a startup will succeed.
“If there’s a product, improbable, but when there isn’t any product, completely fantastic for me … I like founders which might be very technical. They’re tremendous sharp, very sensible, actually making an attempt to construct a worldwide firm from day one,” Reina defined.
He stated he “invests primarily based on thesis,” so if a founder could be very technical, they’re going to have a deeper understanding of the product and the market they’re promoting to.
Reina stated he noticed these traits in Staniszewksi, which satisfied him to again ElevenLabs regardless of the voice AI market being very small on the time.
“Nobody desires to speak to AI voices in the event that they sound robotic. That is basically the most important drawback that there was proper… so after I spoke with Mati, he talked about each parts, and he had not been available in the market,” Reina stated.
“It was actually fascinating to see he was desirous about the issues of the complete ecosystem earlier than even really having any product or earlier than even really speaking to any actual potential buyer.”
Staniszewski had a background in arithmetic with a first-class honors diploma from Imperial School London. His imaginative and prescient and technical experience bought Reina, and ElevenLabs grew to become one of many few startups that he determined to again “actually inside lower than an hour.”
Now, Eleven Labs is planning a worldwide growth, together with constructing new hubs in Paris, Singapore, Brazil and Mexico, in addition to getting the corporate prepared for IPO throughout the subsequent 5 years, Staniszewski informed CNBC in July.
Correction: This story has been up to date to precisely mirror Carles Reina’s profession historical past and present job title.
