Busuu managed to build out and bootstrap it’s way to a healthy audience by being a language-learning site offering direct interaction with native speakers. Last year it raised a Series A investment round of €3.5 million from PROfounders Capital and private investors. It’s now touching 35 million users and last year launched an app strategy which has now iterated that app into other 11 languages. They now say they’ve hit 20 million downloads across iOS and Android (smartphones and tablets), a significant number for language/education apps.
Globally, 62% of all downloads are for iOS and 38% for Android. The top three countries by number of downloads are the US, Germany and Russia, although there is also rapid growth in emerging markets such as Brazil, Turkey and China. Worldwide, the most popular languages downloaded to learn are English, followed by French and then Spanish.
Busuu’s big, active community is a key part of their strategy. Users connect to native speakers by completing writing exercises and submitting these for feedback and corrections. They can then do the same in return, acting as a tutor of their own language.
Compared to other companies in edTech (e.g. Coursera with 5m users..) Busuu is doing pretty well. Remember that this Spring Rosetta Stone acquired Seattle-based online language-learning community Livemocha for $8.5 million in cash. At exit Livemocha had a 16 million member online language-learning community. It had also raised $19 million over six years.
By contrast Busuu has raised $4.56 million to get to its 35 million.
Language Startup Busuu Breaks Livemocha's Records, Hits 35M Users, 20M Downloads
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