Building voice-AI infrastructure and scaling go-to-market globally with Carles Reina, GTM @ ElevenLabs & Angel Investor

In this episode of Riding Unicorns, we’re joined by Carles Reina, Go-to-Market Lead at ElevenLabs, an AI Audio research and deployment company that tripled it"s valuation to $3.3BN in January, after confirming a new $180M funding round.  From starting out as a banker in Barcelona to scaling Uber’s first European team, and now investing in over 70 startups, Carles shares the hard-won lessons that drive startup success. We dive into: 🔄 Career pivot: Leaving banking for Uber at 20 people and discovering the thrill of early-stage impact 📈 Building GTM from scratch: Lessons from Tractable & ElevenLabs—experimenting on ICPs, pricing, and pitches 💼 Angel investing playbook: How to break in as an operator-investor, source top deals, and add value beyond capital 🗣 Voice AI’s inflection point: Why high-quality speech models are the next frontier, and how ElevenLabs powers voice notes for surgery prep and on-demand customer support 🤖 Robotics meets LLMs: The “GPT moment” in hardware, investing in companies merging industrial robotics with large language models ✂️ Trimming strategies: Locking in gains (10–20%) at Series B/C while staying exposed to upside 🌐 Scaling globally: Personalizing GTM across the US, Europe, Asia, and beyond This is a must-listen for GTM leaders, startup builders, and aspiring angels looking to roll up their sleeves, experiment at speed, and back the next wave of unicorns.