AI-powered English tutor Speak has raised a $20M Series B extension

Speak recently announced it secured $20M in Series B-3 financing, bringing its current valuation to $500 million. Buckley Ventures led the Series B extension, and all of Speak's existing investors participated in the funding round, bringing Speak's total raised funds to $84 million.

Speak's AI-powered language tutor helps users build spoken fluency through pattern recognition and repetition, rather than traditional vocabulary and grammar memorization. It also does not depend on human conversation, successfully helping its users talk an average of 1,000 times during their first week. Since its initial launch in the Korean market in 2019, Speak has garnered over 10 million learners in 40+ countries, doubling its user base each year over the last five years.

Speak plans to invest the raised funding in its research and development efforts for its voice-to-voice interface. Speak's new models will allow users to benefit from the speed, ease, and natural flow of a human conversation while receiving real-time feedback from the AI tutor. Speak's model specializes in understanding heavily accented English pronunciation from speakers of over 10 native languages.

According to an internal survey, 94% of Speak's learners believe the app makes it easier to learn English. Nearly 6% of Korea's population is learning English with Speak's AI-powered tutor. To match the demand for language learning solutions, the company recently started offering its English tutor to the Mandarin-speaking market, and it added Spanish to the supported languages in the North American and European markets.