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Speak, an innovative language learning platform that leverages AI to provide real-time feedback on pronunciation and conversation skills, secured $78M in Series C funding. This round, led by Accel, values the eight-year-old San Francisco-based startup at $1B post-money. Previous investors, such as OpenAI Startup Fund, Khosla Ventures, and Y Combinator, participated. https://lnkd.in/dcQiX8yA

Speak has reached a significant milestone with a $78M Series C round at a $1B valuation, led by Accel, with participation from OpenAI’s Startup Fund, Khosla Ventures, and Y Combinator. Speak's unique approach to AI-powered language learning is transforming the way users communicate in English and expanding into new languages like Spanish and French. Ingrid Lunden | TechCrunch https://lnkd.in/dcQiX8yA #EdTech

Speak, the AI-powered language-learning app co-founded by Connor Zwick and Andrew Hsu, has just reached unicorn status with a $1 billion valuation following a $78 million Series C funding round. Backed by Accel, the OpenAI Startup Fund, Khosla Ventures, and Y Combinator, Speak is changing how the world learns languages by focusing on conversational fluency over traditional methods. With over 25 million personalized lessons delivered and a rapidly growing enterprise offering adopted by major employers, Speak is already reshaping language education. This funding will fuel expansion into Southeast Asia, Europe, and the U.S., with plans to add more languages like Spanish and French by next year. As Zwick puts it, "English isn’t just a language; it’s a key that unlocks life-changing opportunities." Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gfqXpMfD

The next big thing? #LanguageModels actually being used to help with (gasp!) #Languages! In a move that looks too obvious to possibly be true, Speak, an #AI-powered language learning #Startup, has just doubled its valuation to $1 billion after a $78M funding round led by Accel, with participation from the OpenAI Startup Fund and others. Unlike traditional methods or even newer platforms like Duolingo, Speak leverages AI for real-time, conversational practice, helping users build authentic speaking abilities. Its speech recognition adapts to accents, making fluency more accessible than ever. As consumer AI adoption grows, Speak stands out with a subscription model at $20 per month and a rising enterprise offering, already adopted by major companies globally, including Korea‘s 10 largest employers. The latest funding will fuel expansion into Southeast Asia, Europe, and the U.S., supporting more languages by 2025. So… Could AI finally bridge the gap between learning a language and truly speaking it? And will we even need to continue learning languages in a world where automated translations will be readily available in increasing quality? 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eaf988iN

Speak has secured $78M in Series C funding, reaching a $1B valuation. The round, led by Accel and supported by the OpenAI Startup Fund, Khosla Ventures, and Y Combinator, marks a significant milestone for the AI-powered language learning platform. Founded by Connor Zwick and Andrew Hsu, Speak is revolutionizing language learning with AI-driven tools that help users achieve spoken fluency. With this funding, the company plans to expand globally and continue enhancing its personalized learning experience. Stay ahead in the startup world! 🌟 Get a weekly digest of key happenings and insights delivered to your inbox every Monday morning. Don't miss out—subscribe now: https://lnkd.in/eR7sehfi 🚀 #AI #EdTech #LanguageLearning #Funding

💭 Meet Raza Habib : The London-based entrepreneur who’s raised over $7 million to build LLM apps with his AI startup: Humanloop 🧑💻 HumanLoop helps companies that want to build products with Large Language Models (LLMs) to develop and evaluate these products. 🤏 Unlike software engineering, when you’re dealing with deterministic code and you can predict how it will behave; using AI is non-deterministic. It’ll produce different outputs depending on very minor changes. Product teams use HumanLoop as their development environment where in that UI, they can collaborate with engineers to develop prompts and iterate. 🦜 Here’s a quick example of how DuoLingo uses HumanLoop to build their LLM applications: 👷 A lot of prompt engineering is required when building AI apps like AI assistants or chatbots that users can practice languages with. 🗣️ The best people to do the prompt engineering for applications like this are the domain experts: Linguists themselves. 🚀 HumanLoop allows linguists to collaborate with engineers to build prompts and measure their performance. 🗞️ In 2023, HumanLoop was also named one of the 21 generative AI startups to watch, according to Sifted. 🛃 Today, HumanLoop works with customers like DuoLingo, Gusto, Vanta, Apollo.io and Fundrise to build LLM applications for them. 📈 Since 2022, they’ve grown over 60x in usage and have around 14 employees. 💰 They’ve now raised about $7M in total from investors like Index Ventures, Y Combinator and the UCL Technology Fund. Check out my latest post for the full story here!! 👉 https://lnkd.in/dzNs9GEu

Annie Liao 🇦🇺 is redefining what it means to lead in the world of AI and startups 🚀 She founded Build Club, a global AI-building community turned e-learning platform, and recently completed a $1.8m raise to scale their training platform to reach 1m AI builders by 2026. “Our raise was pretty interesting, as people believed in me before I had the conviction to go full-time. I’d never really pictured myself as a VC startup founder,” says Annie. “Off the back of their raise, Build Club will focus on building an e-learning platform for designers, engineers, and young professionals to learn about AI, connect with like-minded learners, and even get paid for building and selling AI products,” says Annie. “Our thesis is that if everyone is more educated about AI, then they can build it themselves.” Read Annie’s feature in Missing Perspectives: https://lnkd.in/gdVnUW28

“We’re in this massive paradigm shift,” says Vince Hankes, the venture capitalist leading Thrive Capital’s investment in OpenAI. “And when that happens, historically, there have been new companies created that are worth a lot of money.” Thrive Capital wasn’t an early investor in the generative AI standout—it didn’t buy in until 2023—but it’s made some of the biggest bets on the startup. It reportedly led a private share deal in early 2024 that enabled OpenAI employees to sell shares at an $86 billion valuation, then led a funding round in October that valued the startup at $157 billion.

Are we crossing the chasm for AI language learning? AI language tutor startup Speak doubled its valuation to $1 billion after raising $78 million in a funding round led by Accel, with support from OpenAI Startup Fund, Khosla Ventures, and Y Combinator. Using AI conversational partners for English fluency, Speak has raised $162 million to date, reflecting rapid growth. In short: - $1 Billion Valuation: AI language tutor startup Speak has doubled its valuation in six months, reaching $1 billion after a new funding round. - $78 Million Raised: The latest funding round, led by Accel, included participation from OpenAI Startup Fund, Khosla Ventures, and Y Combinator. - AI-Powered Learning: Speak uses an AI conversational partner to help users achieve English fluency, leveraging advanced technology for personalized language learning. - Total Funding: The company has raised $162 million to date, fueling its growth in AI-driven language education. https://lnkd.in/dmH-WvXf

OpenAI made (venture) history last week, announcing the largest VC round ever: $6.6 billion. That single round represents 44 times the average US VC fund raised last year of $150M, and 130 times the average European VC fund raised last year of less than €50M. Venture capitalists are facing a reality check. Investing in Generative AI is not the same as investing in SaaS. Building large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT demands funding on an entirely different scale. Traditionally, VCs have spread capital thinly across many startups, hoping for a few big wins. But in the generative-AI era, where capital, computing power, and talent are critical, some are betting more on those that are already well-established, instead of kissing a lot of frogs. "If we want everything to stay the same, everything must change". The venture playbooks is being re-written as we speak. And those VC funds that don't manage to adapt, will be left out.