The innovative investment research assistant reports that AI language learning platform Speak has recently raised $78 million in its latest funding round, propelling its valuation to the unicorn threshold of $1 billion, according to Tuesday’s latest news. It’s noteworthy that just six months ago, the company completed a $20 million funding round with a valuation of $500 million. The latest round of financing was led by venture capital firm Accel, with previous investors including OpenAI Startup Fund and YC also participating.
OpenAI is not just a financial investor in the company; Speak’s entire service is built on OpenAI’s AI models and cutting-edge voice technology. In turn, Speak is also a successful case proving the commercial vision of AI+ applications. Unlike the American AI stock sensation Duolingo, which focuses on ‘game-based language learning,’ Speak concentrates more on users’ ‘English speaking’ abilities. (Duolingo daily chart, source: TradingView) Speak, the platform that helps global users ‘speak English out loud,’ targets those who have studied English for many years but lack the ability to ‘speak it out. ‘ After completing this round of financing, the company plans to further expand the number of source languages for learning English – that is, the potential user base. CEO Connor Zwick stated that for the 1.5 billion people trying to learn English, the vast majority of them have spent more than 15 years studying in depth, with vocabulary and grammar knowledge surpassing many native speakers, yet they lack the ability to speak English. Thus, the company’s value proposition remains teaching people how to communicate using this language. It should be clarified that the 1.5 billion refers to the company’s total potential market, not the current number of Speak users. Co-founder and CTO Andrew Hsu revealed that the Speak app has been downloaded more than 10 million times, with an average usage time of about 10-20 minutes per day. The software charges $20 per month or $99 per year, which is not cheap but certainly saves a lot compared to hiring a human tutor to improve conversational skills. The platform also states that they now offer a ‘Speak for Business’ corporate service with over 200 clients. Regarding the ‘AI teaches spoken language’ approach, Zwick introduced that users are first immersed in the ‘listening and speaking’ process and then asked to repeatedly use this new term or phrase.The third step is to ‘present the term in the context of real-world AI usage,’ thereby solidifying the ability to ‘speak English.’ Ironically, although the ultimate goal of this software is to enable learners to communicate with humans, there is no human involvement in the entire learning process. Everything is customized through technologies such as speech recognition, natural language processing, and AIGC.
Unlike most other language learning platforms, Speak is not tied to any specific language proficiency test. Zwick stated that the company is very clear that it does not want to be an exam preparation solution – once tied to an exam, learners will try to become good at taking that exam rather than striving to communicate and use the language in the real world. Andrew Xu also hinted that this issue may become part of the company’s long-term plan, as Speak is building a system that can quantify English fluency and effectiveness, which could be very beneficial for accurately testing English language skills in the future. Ian Hathaway, a partner at OpenAI’s venture fund, stated that the investment in Speak starting in 2022 was based on a shared vision of completely transforming language learning through artificial intelligence. It is exciting to see the top artificial intelligence talent and product vision of this company creating a transformative learning experience for a global user base. (Source: Caixin)