Most apps that help you learn languages have features where you select options or remove wrong answer cards — you’re pretty much interacting with a machine. Language learning app Practice takes a different approach: It lets you create personalized avatars with artificial intelligence to replicate the experience of having a private tutor, leveraging gradients like tone of voice and emotions to make learning a language more natural.
Praktika claims to have 1.2 million monthly active users in 100 countries and said it generated nearly $20 million in revenue over the past 12 months. To continue growing, the startup has now secured a $35.5 million Series A funding round led by Blossom Capital. The round follows a previously undisclosed $2.5 million fundraising round led by Creator Ventures and Blue Wire Capital.
Praktika users interact with AI avatars who then “customize” lessons for you and can speak with multiple accents, including American, British, Asian and Indian. The more the student 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 services business that counted among its clients companies such as Coca- Cola, Kimberly-Clark and AstraZeneca.
“Most language learning apps are about human interaction, with a human teacher. Or it’s machine-to-human interaction that involves click and drag and drop,” 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 master this AI avatar approach, which is very natural for language learning. That’s what really makes it different from any other app you can see on the market right now.”
When asked how the startup uses AI, he said, “We orchestrate different LLMs, but we are a native AI company. We have used GPT-4, GP Turbo, Gemini, Claude and Mistral. We are also experimenting with different versions of their models. We collected a lot of training data and the app is still learning. We have terabytes of this human-artificial intelligence interaction data. We use anonymized data to power the models.”
“Praktika’s founding team brings deep knowledge of artificial intelligence to create a fun, accessible way to learn languages with personalized AI tutors. For too long, other learning apps have taken students for granted and turned them on. The team’s determination to build a global challenger has translated into one of the fastest growing early-stage consumer AI companies in the world,” said Ophelia Brown, managing director of Blossom Capital.
Both the first round and the recent Series A featured prominent 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 core human experience, and the Praktika team has successfully introduced that human element into the product using AI… Over a million learners worldwide the world is improving their English with Praktika already, and this is just the beginning.”
