Search results for Mati Staniszewski
AI & Enterprise
Why FDE teams should report to product, not sales
As tech companies expand forward deployed engineer (FDE) teams to target the enterprise AI market, audio AI company ElevenLabs stresses that FDE organisations should sit under product rather than sales. Co-founder and CEO Mati Staniszewski said FDEs must deeply understand the product roadmap, solve customer problems and expand the product in that direction. He said companies often miss the step of bringing expertise gained from integration work back into the product.
AI & Enterprise
Voice AI firm ElevenLabs raises $500 million, valuation tops $11 billion
Voice AI company ElevenLabs has raised $500 million in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital, TechCrunch reported on Feb. 4. Existing investors a16z and ICONIQ participated, while new investors included Lightspeed Venture Partners, Adventic Capital and BOND. The round valued ElevenLabs at $11 billion, more than triple its valuation in a funding round completed in January last year. The company plans to use the funds for R&D and global expansion.
AI & Enterprise
AI sales concentration deepens as AI-native firms seek to diversify beyond subscriptions
Revenue at AI-native companies selling AI models or services is rising, but sales are heavily concentrated. OpenAI and Anthropic account for nearly 85 percent of annualised revenue among the top 10, and the top 10 reach 94 percent combined. Some apps have passed annualised revenue milestones, and ad-based models are emerging. OpenEvidence sells chatbot ads to doctors and drugmakers. Despite growth, uncertainty persists as many firms remain loss-making and face competition from model providers.
