Sept 8 (Reuters) - ElevenLabs is letting employees sell

shares at a valuation of $6.6 billion - double the voice cloning

artificial intelligence startup's previous value, Bloomberg News

reported on Monday.

ElevenLabs had raised $180 million in its last funding round

in January which gave it a valuation of $3.3 billion at the

time.

AI startups engaged in a fierce competition for talent have

been increasingly letting employees sell stock as they race to

retain and attract top researchers and engineers.

The tender offer will allow staff to sell as much as $100

million in stock, according to the report, and will let

employees who have worked at the company for at least a year to

cash in on shares.

This would also allow more investors to boost their stake in

the company, the report said.

Existing investors Sequoia Capital and Iconiq are leading

the deal, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and

others, the Bloomberg News report said.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI is also in early-stage discussions

about a stock sale that would allow employees to cash out and

could value the company at about $500 billion, Reuters has

reported.

Bloomberg News cited ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski as

saying that the company now has 331 employees, up from 77 a year

ago.

Staniszewski also said that in late October 2024 ElevenLabs

was bringing in $100 million in annualized recurring revenue and

ten months later, it reached $200 million in recurring revenue,

according to the report.

The company hopes to reach $300 million in recurring revenue

by the end of the year, Bloomberg News reported.

ElevenLabs was co-founded by Piotr Dabkowski and Mati

Staniszewski, who have previously worked at Google and

Palantir Technologies ( PLTR ), respectively.