AI voice startup ElevenLabs announced on Tuesday that it has officially launched in Canada.
The news: London, UK-founded, New York-headquartered ElevenLabs, which helps businesses deploy interactive voice and conversational AI agents, sees room to grow north of the border. The company revealed on Tuesday that it plans to open a Toronto office over the coming months and double its 13-person Canadian workforce by the end of 2026. It has promoted Max Lemmens—who joined last year and has helped Revolut and Klarna deploy the firm’s tech—to general manager in Canada to lead those efforts.
From the source: In a blog post, ElevenLabs revealed it already has employees across Vancouver, Toronto, and Montréal, and boasts 30,000 users across the country. Tuesday’s announcement simply formalizes that presence. The company’s Canadian clients currently include Blackbox AI, Boosted.ai, The Globe and Mail, and Telus Digital. The startup also counts the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan among its investors.
Following the thread: ElevenLabs has made a name for itself helping large customers like Deutsche Telekom, Meta, and the Ukrainian government adopt natural and human-sounding AI across their organizations.
The fast-growing AI firm closed a $500-million USD ($709-million CAD) Series D round earlier this year at an $11-billion valuation. Eleven Labs recently surpassed $500 million in annual recurring revenue, up from $350 million at the end of 2025, and is reportedly now in talks for an employee stock sale at double that value. It is looking to build on its rapid growth through international expansion and designated Canada an important market going forward.
Final thought: The Government of Canada’s latest AI strategy aims to boost AI adoption among domestic businesses from 12 percent to 60 percent by 2034. ElevenLabs is betting that it can help facilitate that. It believes there is plenty of untapped opportunity for Canada to benefit from voice and audio AI, especially given its status as an officially bilingual country.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Pierre Jarry.