Amira Learning, an AI-based voice tutor for young children, announced it had received $11.3 million in a Series B funding, led by Authentic Ventures II, LP, with participation from Vertical Ventures, Owl Ventures, and Rethink Education. The funds will be used to roll out new apps and scale its customer base.
Originally created in March 2017 as Lexa Reading, the company replicates guided reading by identifying children’s mispronunciations, skipped words, and other stumbling factors as they read a story aloud. Its speech recognition technology is also able to determine how well they read.
It even track any hints of learning disorders such as dyslexia, claimed CEO Mark Angel in an interview. He joined Amira as CEO in June 2018, having previously served as Renaissance Learning’s chief technology officer for over five years.