TECH NEWS

Poland bought a stake in ElevenLabs to grow its next AI champion

Poland produced one of the world’s most valuable AI companies almost by accident. Now it is spending public money to make sure the next one stays closer to home.

Vinci, the venture arm of Poland’s state development bank BGK, has taken an $11mn stake in ElevenLabs, the AI-voice firm valued at $11bn. The same day, it launched AI Lab Poland, a national programme to funnel funding, mentoring and global contacts to the country’s early-stage AI startups.

The sum is tiny next to the valuation, which is rather the point. This is less an investment than a statement of intent.

Claiming a homegrown champion

ElevenLabs is Polish by origin, not by address. It was founded in 2022 by two Warsaw-born friends, Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dąbkowski, reportedly out of frustration with Poland’s tradition of dubbing every film character with a single monotone narrator.

The 💜 of EU tech

The latest rumblings...

Copyright of this story solely belongs to thenextweb.com. To see the full text click HERE

https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/10/258034_Echo_Dot_Max_2025_JTuohy_0011.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0%2C10.732984293194%2C100%2C78.534031413613&w=1200

The Echo Dot Max is cheaper than ever in an early Prime Day sale

Sheena Vasani writes about tech news, reviews gadgets, and helps readers save money by highlighting deals and product recommendations for The Verge. We’re seeing good early Prime Day deals ahead of the event next week, and unsurprisingly, some of the best deals are on Amazon’s own devices. Several

https://media.thenextweb.com/2026/05/china-humanoid-robot-boom-commercialisation-reality-check.avif

China’s new five-year plan makes tracking AI’s hit to jobs a national priority

China has spent two years telling the world it intends to win the AI race. Its new five-year employment plan is the quieter admission that winning it could cost a lot of people their jobs. The State Council, effectively China’s cabinet, has issued its blueprint for employment policy from

https://media.thenextweb.com/2026/06/cmo-new-operating-system-accountability.avif

Why CMOs need a new operating system for accountability

Marketing leaders have never had access to more data, yet proving the business impact of advertising has become increasingly difficult. As budgets face greater scrutiny and finance teams demand clearer evidence of return on investment, many chief marketing officers are discovering that traditional performance metrics no longer satisfy the questions

https://media.thenextweb.com/2026/06/Critical-Energy1.avif

The bottleneck in geothermal moved from the drill to the turbine. This SpaceX alum raised $22M to fix it

The race to power artificial intelligence has a problem that solar panels and wind turbines cannot fix on their own: the electricity has to be there at 3am, in still air, under cloud. Critical Energy, a Los Angeles startup founded by a former SpaceX engineer, has raised $22mn to chase

Claiming a homegrown champion

Read more

The Echo Dot Max is cheaper than ever in an early Prime Day sale

China’s new five-year plan makes tracking AI’s hit to jobs a national priority

Why CMOs need a new operating system for accountability

The bottleneck in geothermal moved from the drill to the turbine. This SpaceX alum raised $22M to fix it