San Francisco and Ho Chi Minh City-based English language learning app ELSA announced that it has secured US$ 15M in a Series B funding round in February 2021. The funding round was led by VI (Vietnam Investments) Group and SIG. Other participants comprised existing investors Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI-focused fund), SOSV and Monk’s Hill Ventures, and new investors Endeavor Catalyst and Globant Ventures.
The startup will use proceeds from the funding round to expand in Latin America, Vietnam, India and Japan. It aims to develop a scalable B2B platform that will enable companies and educational institutions to provide ELSA’s coaching facilities to their employees or students, respectively.
Tia Gao, Vu Van, Xavier Anguera founded ELSA, also known as English Language Speech Assistant in 2015. Its artificial intelligence-driven mobile app, which now claims to have amassed over 13 million users, strives to help them learn the English language and improve their pronunciation using speech recognition. It recently partnered with IDP and British Council, which owns the famous IELTS English language test and now suggests ELSA for test preparation. The edtech startup has also joined forces with language schools in Vietnam like IMAP and Speak Up, online learning platform YOLA and business clients like Kimberly Clark, Intel and ATAD.
CEO Vu Van said many users intend to improve their English speaking ability to get better job opportunities and increase their earning potential. She further added that in countries like Vietnam, India and Brazil, people with higher English speaking proficiency could earn about two to three times more than their colleagues who are not proficient in English. She was quoted to have said, “This motivation drives a lot of demand for our English learner community in Vietnam, India and Brazil, especially during COVID-19 when we’ve seen enormous interest from the Latin region as well.”
There are many similar language learning apps available in the market, but the difference in ESLA is its exclusive voice recognition AI technology. The startup’s platform has collected the most considerable quantity of accented English voice data from millions of users and then used this data to train its AI model over the past few years. The collection has helped them in accurately identifying and understanding non-native English speakers around the world.
The startup’s total funding now stands at US$ 25.3M which it has raised in recent years from investors namely 500 Startups, SOSV, StartX, Chinaccelerator, Google Launchpad Accelerator, MOX, Gradient Ventures, 500 Startups Vietnam, Monk’s Hill Ventures and more.
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