ELSA Speak Application Expands to Indonesia, Focuses on Increasing English Speaking Skills

ELSA (English Learning Speech Assistant) Speak is an application for learning English that applies artificial intelligence and speech recognition. The technology allows a two-way learning process, for example, the user can pronounce certain words or sentences, then the system will analyze and provide input for improvement.

Based in San Francisco, the ELSA Speak app was founded in 2015 by Vu Van. Currently they claim to have 6,5 million users spread across 101 countries. Then to increase business penetration, the company is intensifying expansion, including to the Indian, Japanese and Indonesian markets.

In Indonesia, there is currently an English learning application developed by a local startup, namely: Language and Conversation – some other apps from global developers like DuoLingo can also be used for free by users here. Multiple startups edutech as Ruangguru (through SkillAcademy) and Zenius also offer English learning materials.

For Bahaso, in addition to -based modules e-learning interactive, they also provide course services online with tutors. Meanwhile Cakap, focus on serving the course channel online for language learning. They collaborate with partners from various universities.

To DailySocial, Sandra Wang as Indonesia Head of Growth ELSA conveyed the market potential of English course services. With a high population aged 35 years and under, Indonesia is likely to contribute to the international workforce. However, according to research conducted English First English Proficiency Index, Indonesia still ranks 61 out of 100 countries for English proficiency.

Instantly integrate with local payment platforms

Currently, ELSA has a local team in Indonesia for marketing and product development. Some of the planned initiatives include integrating platforms with digital payments such as Gopay, with the hope of facilitating the transaction process.

Applications can be downloaded for free and tried with limited features. To take advantage of the full capabilities, users can subscribe with prices starting from Rp. 84 thousand per month.

"In Indonesia, ELSA aims to support people with various backgrounds, various types of education and occupations, in improving their English speaking skills which can be useful for increasing their opportunities in the world of work and daily life," explained Sandra, telling the segmentation of targeted users.

ELSA has raised approximately US$12 million in funding from Monk's Hill Ventures, Gradient Ventures and other investors.

Focus on improving the quality of speaking English

With its technology, ELSA's top priority is practicing English pronunciation accurately. The application is said to be able to detect user pronunciation errors with an accuracy rate of up to 95%. Users can also receive detailed feedback to correct their pronunciation errors, such as reviews of each misspelled syllable to pronunciation analysis.

ELSA has provided more than 1.200 lessons and more than 60 topics for users to practice pronunciation, starting from practicing pronunciation of English words, phrases and sentences. Another feature offered is an interactive dictionary, which will help the user how to pronounce the word or phrase he is looking for.

ELSA Founder & CEO Vu Van said that pronunciation is the biggest challenge in learning English, so it becomes a barrier to speak fluently and confidently. "In this day and age, we need to speak English clearly, and with a clean accent to communicate well at work, school and elsewhere."

This is also in line with the experience experienced by Van until finally establishing ELSA. "I moved to America to do my MBA. My first year at Stanford was very challenging because of my inability to speak English fluently. In fact, I did well in English when I went to school in Vietnam."

"We believe that if someone is able to speak English well, their income level will also increase. Their quality of life will also improve. Thus, more opportunities are opened for them," said Van.

ELSA also has a B2B business model, they offer an integrated platform to help companies, organizations or educational institutions provide English learning solutions for their employees, members or students. Also equipped with an analysis dashboard of learning outcomes that can be monitored by managers.