SpeakX.ai raises $16M Pre-Series B led by WestBridge Capital
Gen-AI spoken-English tutor reaches 1M monthly learners; ARR ~$7.5M
Profitable unit economics: CAC payback one day, 3.7× LTV/CAC
Plans India expansion into regional languages (Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Bengali)
SpeakX.ai, a Gen-AI platform that helps users practise and improve spoken English, has raised $16 million in a Pre-Series B round led by WestBridge Capital. The round saw participation from Elevation Capital, Goodwater Capital and notable angel backers including Shyamal Anadkat (OpenAI) and Ronnie Screwvala (upGrad).
The fresh capital arrives as the start-up reports rapid, profitable growth and plans an aggressive India-focused expansion into regional languages.
Product & Market Angle
Unlike global language apps that emphasise learning new languages, SpeakX.ai targets users who already know basic English but struggle to speak it fluently.
Its GenAI tutor simulates real-world roleplays, job interviews, workplace conversations and everyday interactions, and provides live speech correction, vernacular-to-English support and adaptive difficulty. The company says average session length is about 15 minutes, and most revenue comes from job seekers and students for whom spoken English boosts employability.
The start-up highlighted extremely efficient unit economics: a customer-acquisition-cost payback of one day, a 3.7x LTV/CAC within six months, and 35% retention at month three. Those figures, if sustained at scale, underpin SpeakX.ai’s claim of being one of India’s fastest-scaling and profitable edtech firms and helped secure backing from growth-stage funds and strategic angels.
Fund Utilisation
SpeakX.ai will deploy the capital to deepen its AI capabilities, expand the team and add regional-language interfaces.
The company says 70% of its current users are Hindi-speaking and plans to introduce support for Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Bengali and other regional languages within the next year, an India-first rollout the founders view as the fastest path to scale given the domestic market’s depth.
Sandeep Singhal, managing partner at WestBridge Capital, said SpeakX.ai’s product addresses a crucial economic barrier: “Language proficiency continues to be a key driver of economic mobility. SpeakX.ai’s AI-native platform is opening new pathways for millions of learners.” Founder Arpit Mittal framed the ambition succinctly.
“We are building a truly AI-native language company, for our users, English is not just a skill, it is confidence, career, and dignity.” Manish Advani of Elevation Capital added that the start-up stands out for applying AI meaningfully to learning outcomes.
Projections & Pitfalls
SpeakX.ai says it now serves more than 1 million monthly learners, counts roughly 200,000 active paying subscribers and generates an annual recurring revenue of about $7.5 million.
The company has been EBITDA-positive since April 2025, reporting roughly $150,000 in monthly profits and $1 million in cumulative EBITDA over the past five months, metrics investors cited as evidence of sustainable traction.
SpeakX.ai is targeting roughly ₹100 crore (~$12 million) in annual EBITDA by 2026 and aims to build a $300–$400 million business in India over the next two to three years. The path to that scale will depend on maintaining retention and conversion metrics as the company moves deeper into regional markets, while protecting margins as marketing and product localisation costs rise.
