Most people who have spoken to ElevenLabs have no idea they did. The company builds models that turn text into speech that sounds human, and much of that speech now reaches the public through customer service lines. Klarna uses it for first-line phone support covering 35 million U.S. customers. Deutsche Telekom, Cisco, Adobe and a growing number of governments are also customers. A separate part of the business serves creators, who use the platform for audiobooks, dubbing and music.

The company is four years old. It says it is pacing at $600 million in annual recurring revenue, and its backers reportedly value it at $22 billion. In a short on-stage interview with TechCrunch at Nrth, a Toronto entrepreneurship conference formerly called Elevate, co-founder and CEO Mati Staniszewski covered competition, model choice, disclosure and money.

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