SAN FRANCISCO — Speak, an app that helps tutor users in English, has raised $78 million Series C round at a $1 billion valuation.
Accel led the round with support from existing investors including the OpenAI Startup Fund, Khosla Ventures, and Y Combinator among others. This marks the company’s second raise this year, with its valuation doubling in the six months since the last round. Speak has now raised $162 million to date.
While language learning has evolved from traditional software to mobile apps, these solutions failed to solve the core challenge: being able to actually communicate out loud in the language. Our users consistently tell us the same story – despite years of studying English, they couldn’t speak comfortably until discovering Speak. We’ve engineered a breakthrough in spoken fluency by combining our proprietary learning method with advanced AI that adapts to each user’s needs, making true fluency accessible to so many more people. So far this year, users have already spoken more than one billion sentences with Speak. And in 2025, we plan to bring Speak to many, many more countries.
“Speak has emerged as a standout player in consumer AI, demonstrating exceptional growth and market potential,” said Ben Quazzo, partner at Accel, who led the investment round and is joining Speak’s Board of Directors. “With its strategic expansion into global and enterprise markets, coupled with effective, personalized language learning at scale and an experienced team, Speak is well-positioned to dominate this new category.”
“Our 2022 investment in Speak was driven by a shared vision of revolutionizing language learning with AI,” said OpenAI Startup Fund partner Ian Hathaway. “We’re thrilled to see their world class AI talent and unique product vision create transformative learning experiences for a rapidly growing userbase worldwide. We’re excited to see Speak set new standards in AI learning.”
