THE KOREA ECONOMIC DAILY, GLOBAL EDITION

Speakeasy Labs Inc., a South Korea-focused language learning app operator, has joined the ranks of unicorn startups after raising $78 million at a valuation of $1 billion.

The artificial intelligence-based app offers tutoring services for foreign language learners, correcting grammatical errors while speaking.

Global venture capital firms such as OpenAI Startup Fund, Khosla Ventures, Accel and Y Combinator joined the latest funding round.

The startup's valuation is double the $500 million estimated for its previous fundraising in July.

A unicorn is a private company with a corporate value of $1 billion or more.

San Francisco-based Speakeasy Labs was launched in 2019 with a focus on South Korea. It achieved 5.5 million downloads in South Korea as of July this year.

Write to Eun-Yi Ko at koko@hankyung.com
 


Yeonhee Kim edited this article.