Quazel obtains $1.5 million to advance its AI language tutor

Speaking is one of the fastest ways to master a local language, however, existing language programs have still failed to emphasize conversational aspect. Tutors are expensive and meeting tandem partners requires a lot of cumbersome scheduling and personal chemistry. This is where Quazel comes in, a Zurich-based startup founded by two computer science graduates from ETH Zurich and a business management graduate from the University of St.Gallen.

Quazel enables language learners to talk to an AI app, which is designed to recreate and improve the experience of having a human tutor to practice speech with. In completely unscripted and dynamic conversations with an AI, learners can say anything, and the AI will carry on the conversation. By using cutting-edge machine learning techniques, the Quazel team has been able to create an AI personal language tutor that can talk about anything and deeply understand the context of the conversation. With the app, users can, therefore, have conversations as they would with a tutor in a physical setting while getting a tailored learning structure suitable to their progress and interests. The app offers various features such as scene builder, which allows users to choose their counterpart and topic of discussion, and with gamification, they can earn points as they level up, making the learning journey enjoyable, engaging, and accessible.

Following its launch, the app signed more than 50’000 users in just two days.  It currently supports 21 languages: English, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Czech, Finnish, Indonesian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian.

The company has raised $1.5M in its seed financing round to make personalised and individual tutoring available to a broader audience. The funds will also enable the company to expand its team and advance the app. Khosla Venture, which also provides venture assistance and strategic advice to entrepreneurs working on breakthrough technologies, invested in Quazel. Founded in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, the firm has over $15b assets under management.

(RAN)