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AI - power language learning appSpeakis on a snag .
Since launching in its inaugural securities industry of South Korea in 2019,Speakhas grow to over 10 million drug user , CEO and co - founder Connor Zwick told TechCrunch . Its drug user base has replicate every year for the last five year , and Speak now has customers in more than 40 countries .
swell to see Speak’sexpansioncontinue , investor are now pledge additional hard currency to the startup .
The troupe this calendar week close a $ 20 million Series B extension phone led byBuckley Ventures , with involvement from the OpenAI Startup Fund , Khosla Ventures , Y Combinator co - founder Paul Graham and LinkedIn executive director chairperson Jeff Weiner . The capital injection brings Speak ’s total raise to $ 84 million and doubles the inauguration ’s evaluation to half - a - billion dollar bill .
Speak , launch in 2014 by Zwick and Andrew Hsu , who met while at theThiel Fellowship , is designed to teach speech communication by having users learn speak patterns and practice repetition in craft lessons rather than memorise vocabulary and grammar . In this room , it ’s not unlike to Duolingo , particularly Duolingo’snewer generative AI features . But straight to its namesake verb , Speak emphasise verbalizing above all else .
“ Our core ism is centered around getting exploiter to mouth out loud as much as possible , ” Zwick said . “ Attaining fluency helps people spring connector , connect cultivation and produce economic chance . It remains the most authoritative part of language find out for people , yet historically , the least supported through engineering . ”
verbalise initiate with English , and has since launched lessons in Spanish , powered by a speech acknowledgment model train on in - theater datum . Next up is French , but Zwick did n’t say on the button when it will plunge lessons for that .
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Speak makes money by charging $ 20 per month , or $ 99 per year , for memory access to all of the app ’s feature , including brushup material and one - off grade .
With a 75 - mortal workforce across offices in San Francisco , Seoul , Tokyo and Ljubljana ( the capital of Slovenia ) , Speak ’s near - to - foresightful - term roadmap is developing newfangled model that deliver estimable genuine - time feedback on tone and pronunciation , Zwick say .
