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    Backed By Google Ventures, EnglishCentral Raises $3.5 Million For Video Language Learning - digidextrous

    Video language learning website EnglishCentral

    recently raised a total of $3.5 million, according to an SEC filing

    . Part of that funding was $1.38 million from a previous convertible debt round, making the amount raised in the current series A financing $2.1 million. EnglishCentral is backed by Google Ventures and Atlas Venture. The fact that Google Ventures was the lead investor in a seed round last October was reported

    , but the amount invested was never disclosed. Based on the information in the filing, it is possible that that the seed round was in the form of the $1.38 million convertible note and is now converting into equity with the additional $2.1 million investment.

    The filing does not say who the invested in the new round, but Rich Miner

    of Google Ventures is listed as a director of the company. Google Ventures

    is Google’s venture arm which launched last April with an initial $100 million and can invest in pretty much anything, although mostly it’s been putting money into clean tech startups.

    EnglishCentral is a language tutorial site which uses popular videos from movies, news clips, and other categories to help people around the world learn English. Students watch a captioned video, and then try to repeat the phrases by speaking into a microphone and recording their attempts. Speech-to-text software tries to make sense of their pronunciation and gives them grades for accuracy, which they can track over time. The video tutorials are free, but the site also connects language students with tutors, and presumably takes a cut of any resulting fees.

    We have contacted both EnglishCentral and Google Ventures for clarification on the details of the funding and will update if we here back.

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    CrunchBase Information
    EnglishCentral
    EnglishCentral image

     

    Website: englishcentral.com
    Location: Lexington, Massachusetts, United States
    Founded: 2008
    Funding: $3.48M

    EnglishCentral aims to become the premier, web-based conversational English language learning destination for desktop and mobile users.

    They focus on helping users with their spoken English, using proprietary speech recognition technology that… Learn More

    Google Ventures
    Google Ventures image

     

    Website: google.com/ventures
    Founded: March 31, 2009
    Investments: Silver Spring Networks, EnglishCentral, Pixazza, AltaRock Energy, Brightsource Energy, eSolar

    Google Ventures was founded in March 2009.

    Google Ventures is broadly interested in startups in industries including consumer Internet, software, hardware, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care and others.

    They invest amounts ranging from seed… Learn More

    Rich Miner
    Rich Miner image

     

    Companies: Android, Orange, Google, Google Ventures, EnglishCentral, SCVNGR

    Rich Miner is a Managing Partner of Google Ventures. He has spent the past 25 years growing businesses with innovative communications and interface-intensive applications. Rich joined Google through the acquisition of Android, a mobile platforms… Learn More

    Information provided by CrunchBase
    via techcrunch.com

     

    via digidextrous.com

    ok which part didnt I miss ....and you say machines are not going to replace teachers...??

    • 10 September 2010
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