Wavemaker backs Australian AI firm’s $1.5m round

Language Confidence, an Australia-based AI firm, has raised US$1.5 million in seed funding in a round led by Wavemaker Partners and joined by Investible.

The deal pushes the company’s total funding raised to date to over US$1.9 million.

Language Confidence co-founder Nicholas Jenkins / Photo credit: Language Confidence

Language Confidence offers an API that can automatically assess and correct students’ English pronunciation. It can be plugged into other apps owned by schools, corporates, or English learning platforms.

The company was established in 2018 by serial entrepreneur Nicholas Jenkins and former Atlassian engineer Swahn Fraye.

In a statement, Language Confidence said that it recorded a 5x surge in newly signed enterprise customers in 2021, which it achieved without spending any money on outbound sales and marketing.

“We’ve come a long way since our pre-seed round of A$500,000 (around US$360,000) ran out and we managed to keep the company alive on credit cards until we had our first real, paying customer late in 2019,” Jenkins said.

See also: Series SEA: Who’s investing in the region’s AI startups?

The firm plans to use the fresh funding to expand its product offering and grow its customer base.

Currency converted from Australian dollar to US dollar: US$1 = A$1.37.