Ivan Crewkov, an entrepreneur from Siberia, accidentally discovered the great potential of AI education from his daughter's experience of learning English after he failed to enter the smart speaker market. He founded the children's English education AI companyBuddy..ai, which recently received an $11 million seed round led by BITKRAFT VenturesFinancingIts AI technology and business model, which focuses on solving children's English learning pain points, has been recognized by capital.
Crewkov's entrepreneurial journey has been quite dramatic: in 2014, he moved to the US with his family and prepared to launch a crowdfunding campaign for his smart speaker project Cubic.AI, but the project was forced to die when the Kickstarter campaign suffered a downgrade blow from Amazon's Echo smart speaker one week before it went live. However, his daughter's mechanical way of conversing and interacting with an online tutor in the process of adapting to an English-speaking environment inspired him, and he decided to develop an AI conversational assistant to help children learn English, and Buddy.ai was born.
Image source: Buddy.ai
Despite the team's background in voice AI technology, Buddy.ai's development process was not a smooth one. Because the product is aimed at children, the company needed to strictly comply with child privacy protection regulations such as COPPA, and the development cycle was much longer than the expected six months. In addition, the AI system needed to understand the English pronunciation of children from different linguistic backgrounds, which placed higher demands on the technology.
After seven years of development, Buddy.ai has achieved remarkable results, with nearly 55 million cumulative downloads and serving over 22 million students annually. The financing also went through negotiations with 186 investors, and finally chose BITKRAFT Ventures, which specializes in the gaming field, as a partner, which coincides with most children's habit of using Buddy as a game.
The company plans to invest all of its capital into product development, including recruiting a head of game design and a head of user experience design, as well as further expanding its language offerings and deepening its partnerships with schools. On the AI language education track, Buddy.ai's focus on children's English education positions it uniquely to remain in competition with the likes of Univerbal and Loora.
Crewkov firmly believes that the future model of education will be blended, and AI tutors can provide strong support for teachers, especially in the daily practice sessions, AI can make up for the lack of the number of human teachers, and provide more hands-on opportunities for language learning.The success of Buddy.ai not only demonstrates the resilience of an entrepreneur who seeks out opportunities in the midst of adversity, but also reveals the great potential of AI education in solving real-world problems. Buddy.ai's success not only demonstrates the resilience of an entrepreneur looking for opportunities in the face of adversity, but also reveals the enormous potential of AI education in solving real problems.