How ElevenLabs scales a global workforce with Deel

ElevenLabs is on a mission to build the world’s most innovative audio AI platform, making information accessible in any voice and language. The company developed the first human-like AI voice model—and has expanded from there.

As the company quadrupled in size in 2025, the challenge of managing a distributed US team became a significant operational hurdle. With no physical US office and a leadership team based in Europe, planning US expansion became challenging. The patchwork of state-specific tax rules, registrations, and employment laws, layered atop federal regulations, was intimidating.

Managing these nuances required deep local expertise that the lean, UK-based People team didn't have. Without a US HR partner, they risked costly state compliance fines, payroll errors, and slower hiring that could stall their expansion. ElevenLabs needed a turnkey, all-in-one solution to simplify HR, compliance, payroll, tax, and benefits.

"Managing the US workforce is very complex. People often assume the US has uniform requirements, but the country includes many different state requirements. New York and California are particularly tricky." —Milly Bawden, People Partner, ElevenLabs

ElevenLabs expanded its partnership with Deel by adding PEO as a natural extension of its existing EOR, Payroll, and Independent Contractor setup. This allowed the company to manage its 130 US employees through a co-employment model that shares compliance liability and manages HR, payroll, tax, and benefits administration. ElevenLabs relied on Deel to handle the day-to-day tasks of managing a US workforce, giving them more time for strategic initiatives.

ElevenLabs has a dedicated Deel Customer Success Manager and a Slack channel for fast answers for anything HR-related, including benefits and 401(k) retirement plans. The PEO model delivered compliance peace of mind, especially in complex states like California, where termination pay laws are strict.

"Deel is an extension of the ElevenLabs People team. It allows us to remain a lean team and justifies the investment due to the partnership and support received." —Milly Bawden, People Partner, ElevenLabs

Attractive and competitive benefits for global employees

As ElevenLabs opened new country entities and extended payroll globally, it needed employee benefits in place, without adding another vendor to manage.

Deel introduced them to our benefits administration solution and broker network. ElevenLabs reviewed competitive quotes, selected plans, and Deel's team handled configuration and benefits enrollment from there. Ireland went live in March. The UK followed a few weeks later. India is currently in progress.

Benefits run inside the same Deel platform as payroll. Employees find their coverage, payslips, and time-off requests in one place from day one. And through Deel's broker network, ElevenLabs can offer above-market benefits packages, which they source at competitive rates. It’s a key reward to help attract top global tech talent.

For a fast-growing AI company, manual administrative work is the ultimate holdup. ElevenLabs streamlined operations by integrating Deel with its current HR system, HiBob, and its hiring platform, Ashby. These integrations turned manual data entry into automated workflows, saving the People team valuable time during the onboarding process. With NetSuite integration, payroll syncs with accounting automatically across direct employees, EORs, and contractors.

Beyond efficiency, the quality of the employee experience remained a priority. By providing international health coverage through Aetna, ElevenLabs ensured its US team felt supported even while traveling abroad for work.

Being able to manage their employees on one Deel platform has also helped the company’s People team move fast. They gain a single view of their entire global workforce, with smoother onboarding, HR, and payroll workflows. The platform’s scalability makes it easy to support the company’s plan to expand global headcount this year.