ElevenLabs Appoints ANZ Go-to-Market Director in APAC Push

ElevenLabs has appointed Michael Costa as go-to-market director for Australia and New Zealand, marking the AI voice company's first confirmed personnel move in the Asia-Pacific region as it deploys capital from its US$500 million Series D funding round.

ElevenLabs Confirms ANZ Hire Through LinkedIn, Not Press Release

The appointment was confirmed through Costa's updated LinkedIn profile rather than a formal company announcement. No office opening or additional executive hires in Australia or New Zealand have been announced as of early 2026.

ElevenLabs' Series D, led by Sequoia Capital, tripled the company's valuation to US$11 billion and pushed total funding beyond US$750 million. The round explicitly earmarks resources for Asia-Pacific expansion through locally embedded teams. Andreessen Horowitz is also among the company's backers.

The company was reported in January 2026 to be in talks on a further funding round at the same US$11 billion valuation, driven by accelerating demand in entertainment and gaming.

APAC AI Voice Market Expanding at Up to 32% Annually

Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing region globally for AI voice generation, with a projected CAGR between 11% and 32%. That outpaces North America's 9% to 28% growth range.

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The global AI voice generators market is projected to grow from US$6.40 billion in 2025 to US$54.54 billion by 2033, at a CAGR of 30.7%.

ElevenLabs' Asia-Pacific strategy centers on enterprise telecom, including modernizing automated phone systems and contact centers with multilingual, low-latency voice AI. The company integrates its tools via standard telecom and CRM infrastructure, positioning its offering at the business-to-business layer rather than the consumer market.

Costa's role will also cover ElevenLabs' expanding product portfolio. That includes ElevenAgents, a real-time voice agent platform, and ElevenCreative, an audio-video fusion tool. The company launched Eleven Music in August 2025, adding AI music generation to its suite.

Competitive Landscape and Localization Challenges

ElevenLabs enters a market with an intensifying competitive landscape. In January 2025, semiconductor company MediaTek partnered with AI firm Intelligo to develop AI voice solutions for automotive, smart home, and retail markets across Asia-Pacific, using 5G and edge computing to reduce processing delays.

AI voice technology across the region faces a documented barrier: systems still struggle with low-resource languages and regional dialects that lack large digital training datasets. This challenge is directly relevant in Australia, where a multicultural population and significant Southeast Asian diaspora communities create demand for dialect-aware voice tools.

Australia's role as a regional technology gateway makes it a common first point of entry for US and European AI companies targeting broader Asia-Pacific expansion.

ElevenLabs Founded by Polish Entrepreneurs, Backed by Top US Investors

ElevenLabs was founded by Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski. The company is headquartered in London and backed by Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, an investor profile that mirrors other enterprise AI platforms that have used ANZ markets as a beachhead for broader Asia-Pacific expansion.

No formal partnerships, office openings, or additional ANZ hires beyond Costa have been confirmed as of early 2026, indicating the expansion remains in an early go-to-market phase.