With 4 million apps download, Estonia-based startup Vocal image AI-managed coaching is to help people improve their voice and communication skills. But among its 160,000 active users, it can be its CEO Nick Lakhoica, which best looks its mission.
Lakhloika was born in Belarus, did not speak English for Estonia till his transfer, and was once struggling with the concern of speaking. Nevertheless, he told Tekkachchan on behalf of Voice Coaching Startup “a lot of pitch competitions”, which was inspired by his journey.
“When I was in school, I was a little tight for vague diction,” Lakhoika said. In his early twenty -nine conditions, as a young, unsafe founder, he met Merina “Russia”, a vocal coach “Russia”, who taught him that voice and communication could be trained.
To help others, he started a YouTube channel, which eventually turned into an outspoken image, which deploys his membership-based app as a inexpensive option for one coaching that you can use at home. “You can make funny movements, strange sounds (…) and feel safe,” Lakhoika said.
With an interactive library that involves tongue twisters, breathing exercises, and gestures, the vocal image is also bending more and more in AI to give automatic response and personal suggestions, thanks to the large part, besides co-founder and CTO Mikalai Karalau, thanks to Lakhoika.

These guided trips mostly work like work -related goals such as professional or leadership skills and develop public speaking or presentation abilities. But the vocal image also supports those who only want to increase their confidence, as well as LGBTQ people Was supporting in Belarus,
While Trio is from Belarus, he was one of the many Belarusian founders, who left their home country and met together after failing to exclude President Alexander Lakashnco and meet and meet together CruelLakhloika chose Estonia for its business atmosphere, which has so far proved to be favorable for startups.
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Shortly after transferring Telin, the vocal image joined the local accelerator startup wise friends, which considers the startup as a one “success stories“Due to its rapid growth. According to Lakhoica, the startup later reached $ 6.5 million in the annual recurring revenue (ARR) at less than $ 1 million in the east-seed funding.
Recently, the startup raised a $ 3.6 million seed round under the leadership of French Edtech VC firm Edukapital, with participation with participation Expert vC Out of Estonia and Generation fund Outside Germany, Techcrunch specially learned.
By August, the startup now claims $ 12 million ARR and some 50,000 paid users, Lakhoika said. Along with a team of 20 people, including the majority of Belarusi exiled, the vocal image is now planning to develop its growth team and deploy more localization (in addition to English, Spanish, German, French, Ukrainian and Russian).
This funding does not come for a long time when the startup was chosen as one of their five winners by the face, meta, and scalway. European AI Startup ProgramBut even at a time when it is facing increased competition. For example, Edtech Company Headway recently An AI-Inaccuced Speech Trainer Added For your social skills app, Skilsta. But the outspoken image can rely on your own GDPR-Compiant AI TOVE.
With some 35,000 recording in a day, the vocal image has created samples of more than 1 million real-arrival. Even better, these recordings are labeled by the community through voice ratings, an associate feature that allows users to decide whether other people sound “confidence” or “the same” sound.
This is the type of dataset that apps such as apps such as vocal image to improve its accuracy. This can help AI startup to cure its artificial sounds, making it constructed forward for startup beyond the B2C roots.