When Ivan Crewkov arrived in the United States from Russia, he noticed that his daughter was struggling to learn English in her new adoptive country. The multi-time startup founder set out to develop a tool that could help her better learn English, and he stumbled on something big.
Buddy.ai, is the world’s first conversational AI tutor for kids, according to Crewkov. Last week, TechCrunch reported that the company had closed its $11 million Seed funding round, bringing the total venture funding raised since the company’s launch in 2017 to $13M.
The round was led by BITKRAFT Ventures, a leading global investment platform focused on gaming and interactive media, along with Educapital, the largest European education technology fund. Other investors in this funding round include One Way Ventures, J Ventures, Point72 Ventures, and Goodwater Capital.
Additionally, a group of angel investors contributed, including the co-founder of Oculus, former executives at Riot Games, and Hollywood executive producers from iconic series like The Simpsons.
The presence of investors from varied verticals like artificial intelligence (AI), education, gaming, and entertainment reflected Buddy.ai’s uniquely designed app, which has pioneered a multimodal AI tutoring approach through Buddy, the company said in a statement.
A fully-interactive, animated robot, Buddy converses with students in real-time, teaching children under 12 how to speak English.
Research has shown the use of an interactive, conversational persona improves learning outcomes for young children, thus Buddy’s game-based, story-driven lessons are ideal for early learners whose primary mechanism for learning is through play.
The mission of Buddy.ai is to ensure children around the world have access to one-on-one tutoring using AI. Based on UNESCO data, 69 million teachers are needed worldwide in order to reach universal basic education. In the face of a massive global teacher shortage, AI tutoring is the best and only way to fill these gaps quickly and affordably. Though Buddy’s tutoring roots are in English language learning, they’ve recently launched an Early Learning Course, and more subjects are in store for the future.
Reflecting on the company’s mission, Crewkov said, “Buddy.ai was inspired by watching my daughter’s struggles as an immigrant learning a new language in a new country. The Buddy.ai team believes that personalized education is a right and not a privilege, and every child deserves a personal tutor, so when we look towards the future of the platform, we see every child in the world as a potential student.”
To achieve Buddy’s exceptional voice-based interaction, Buddy.ai began developing their proprietary Speech Recognition technology four years prior to the AI boom brought on by ChatGPT. Whereas most AI technology is trained on adult voices and not aligned with regulations specific to children, Buddy’s Speech Recognition (BSR) capabilities are COPPA-compliant and fine-tuned to understand children’s voices. With over 25,000 hours of children’s speech in their dataset, BSR outperforms Google and other off-the-shelf speech recognition systems.
Having just surpassed 50 million downloads, Buddy reaches over 20 million students annually. In 2023 alone, the platform saw 22 million downloads worldwide, 92% year over year (YOY) growth in monthly active users, and 93% YOY growth in monthly recurring revenue, according to the company.
Buddy fans can be found across the globe – nearly half the user base is in Latin America, and many are in English-speaking countries. Last year, Buddy.ai launched an Early Learning Course aimed at English-speaking children aged 4-7 in the US market and saw 350% YOY growth.
The Buddy.ai app was included in Time Magazine’s World’s Top EdTech Rising Stars of 2024. Buddy.ai has also been recognized as the Global Edtech Startup Award (GESA) Innovation Winner, the Education winner at South Summit, and the Best Technology Solution for Learning and Training at the EnlightED Awards, among others.
“The traditional 1-on-1 teacher-to-child education model is unaffordable for many families and not scalable for teachers. Buddy.ai is uniquely positioned with a threefold combination of technical depth, expertise in Early Learning, and a knack for positively engaging content. Kids have a higher learning efficacy when their personal learning journey is met with dynamically adjusting difficulty levels and amplified when engaged with a fun IP. It gets even better when you can democratize access to great learning experiences for an underserved global population,” commented Jasper Brand, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures.
With the resources provided by the most recent funding round, the Buddy.ai team plans to lead the AI revolution in early learning by: advancing their proprietary AI technology further, continuing to mature the gaming and world-building elements on the app, and expanding partnerships with schools and educational institutions.
