Language Curry, a Gurugram-based language learning platform with a keen focus on Indian languages, has raised $600,000 in its seed round led by LetsVenture, IAN, Varsha Rao (CEO, Nurx and Former Head of Global Operations AirBnB), and Rebalance.
The round also saw participation from Ajay Rajgharia, Nitin Zamre, Shashvat Nakhrani (Co-founder, BharatPe), Karan Tanna (Founder, Ghost Kitchens India), and Rohit Chanana amongst others.
The company plans to use the proceeds of the current round towards team building, building new superior products, and expansion to other geographies.
Launched in 2019 by Aneesha Jyoti, Vatsala Sharma, and Puneet Singh, Language Curry offers features such as gamified content, interactive lessons, vocabulary help, and more. The app currently provides 10 Indian languages including Hindi, Sanskrit, Punjabi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil, Marathi, and Telugu. Most of the downloads are from India, where urban migrants and other language enthusiasts aim to learn a different regional language for work relationships.
The startup is on a mission to make India accessible to the world through the Language Curry mobile app that makes foreign to Indian language learning easy and culturally relevant. Language Curry is the only app that goes beyond translation or script-based pedagogy to immerse users into the local culture through cultural tips and transliteration.
Commenting on the fundraise, Vatsala Sharma, Co-founder of Language Curry, said,
“Right from early days, Language Curry has received love with organic inbounds and use cases coming in from all over the world. With this raise, we will further our vision of introducing a new benchmark in language learning that leverages both context and relevance to make it fun and effective! We are happy to have found partners in Varsha, LetsVenture, and IAN who firmly believe in our vision and potential.”
Language Curry has grown over 500% in the past 6 months to close in on 8,00,000 downloads to become the most loved app in the language learning space. The company has also introduced an industry-first voluntary Guru Dakshina payment option and has seen voluntary offers as high as $500 by its learners after using the platform.
Shanti Mohan, Co-founder & CEO of LetsVenture, said,
“I fundamentally believe that the next wave of innovative startups will focus on innovation aimed at Bharat. Language Curry’s mission to make India accessible to the world with an easy-to-use platform available across 170+ countries to learn Indian languages is already witnessing tremendous growth. As the Indian economy witnessed a resurgence, vernacular-focused ed-tech platforms will see an uptick in demand as the Indian ed-tech ecosystem is poised to be one of the largest in the world. Language Curry has a fantastic team and track record focused on scale, growth, monetization and I am delighted to join their capable. My best wishes to the team for the next phase in their journey.”
Language Curry’s platform uniquely equips its learners with contextual, conversational language learning where the user not only learns the ‘what’ or ‘how’ of speaking Indian languages but also receives short cultural capsules that explain the ‘why’ behind it.
Ajay Rajgarhia, Lead Investor from IAN, added, “Language Curry is a new-age learning platform that is making learning Indian languages easy and culturally relevant. With a focus on learning Hindi and regional languages in an easy and convenient manner, Language Curry has the first-mover advantage and has already built a strong name for itself. We are delighted to support this venture with a great team of founders and strongly believe that they will create a significant impact in vernacular language learning.”
Language Curry had raised $92,000 in angel funding from Rebalance Angel Community and a clutch of angels in August 2020.
