Practice raises $35.5 million to use AI avatars to make language learning feel more natural | TechCrunch

Most apps that help you learn languages ​​present a user experience that makes you choose options or remove wrong answer cards – you’re pretty much interacting with a machine. Language learning app Praktika is taking a different approach: It lets you create personalized AI-powered avatars to replicate the experience of having a private tutor, using inflections like tone of voice and emotions to help learning of a language to feel more natural.

The practice claims to have 1.2 million monthly active users in 100 countries and said it generated nearly $20 million in revenue in the past 12 months. To continue growth, the startup has now secured a $35.5 million Series A funding round led by Blossom Capital. The round follows a previously unannounced $2.5 million fundraising that was led by Creator Ventures and Blue Wire Capital.

Praktika users interact with AI avatars, who then “tailor” the lessons for you and can speak with several accents, such as American, British, Asian and Indian. The more the learner interacts with the avatar, the more tailored the lessons will become – at least that’s the idea.

The company’s founding team, Adam Turaev (CEO), Anton Marin (CTO) and Ilya Chernyakov (CPO), previously built Cleverbots, an AI service business that counted companies such as Coca-Cola, Kimberly-Clark and AstraZeneca among its clients .

“Most language learning applications are about human interaction, with a human teacher. Or it’s ‘machine-to-human’ interaction that involves clicking and dragging and dropping,” Turaev told TechCrunch. “But we’re the only app out there for tone of voice, where you mimic human-to-human interaction. We were the first to own that AI avatar approach, which is very natural to language learning. So that’s what really makes it different from any other app you can see on the market right now.”

When asked how the startup is using AI, he said, “We orchestrate various LLMs, but we are a homegrown AI company. We have used GPT-4, GP Turbo, Gemini, Claude and Mistral. We also experiment with different versions of their designs. We collected a lot of training data and the app is still learning. We have terabytes of this human-AI interaction data. We use anonymized data to reinforce the models.”

“Praktika’s founding team is bringing its deep AI knowledge to create a fun and affordable way to learn languages ​​with personalized AI tutors. For too long, other learning apps have taken students for granted and changed them. The team’s determination to build a global challenger has translated into one of the fastest-growing early-stage consumer AI companies globally,” Ophelia Brown, managing partner of Blossom Capital, said in a statement.

Both the opening and final rounds of Serie A saw participation from notable figures such as Carles Reina (ElevenLabs) and Patrice Evra (five-time Premier League champion).

Sasha Kaletsky, managing partner at Creator Ventures, added in a statement, “Learning a language is a fundamentally human experience, and the Praktika team has successfully injected this human-like element into the product using AI… Over a million learners worldwide the world is improving English with Practice already, and this is just the beginning.”