Vocal Image Leverages AI to Boost Communication Skills

Vocal Image, an innovative startup from Estonia with 4 million app downloads, is focused on improving voice and communication skills via AI-assisted coaching. CEO Nick Lakhoika passionately articulates the company’s vision, which has garnered 160,000 active users.

Lakhoika, originally from Belarus, moved to Estonia without knowledge of English and faced hurdles such as speaking anxiety. However, he achieved success in multiple pitch competitions for his voice coaching venture, drawing from his own experiences as he shared with TechCrunch.

“During my school days, I was often teased for my unclear speech,” Lakhoika recalled. In his early twenties, he recognized the life-changing benefits of voice training while working with vocal coach Maryna “Rusia” Shukiurava.

Desiring to assist others facing similar issues, they created a YouTube channel that evolved into Vocal Image, providing a subscription-based app as a budget-friendly option to traditional coaching, easily accessible from home. “You can confidently explore unique movements and sounds,” Lakhoika stressed.

Vocal Image features an interactive library filled with tongue twisters, breathing techniques, and gestures, increasingly utilizing AI to offer automated feedback and personalized insights, thanks to the efforts of co-founder and CTO Mikalai Karaliou, as highlighted by Lakhoika.

The app’s guided experiences primarily focus on enhancing professional skills, such as leadership, public speaking, and presentation abilities. Vocal Image also aids individuals looking to boost their self-confidence, especially within the LGBTQ community, a mission supported by Shukiurava in Belarus.

Though the founders originate from Belarus, they represent a larger community of expatriates who left following severe crackdowns on anti-regime protests led by President Alexander Lukashenko. Lakhoika chose Estonia for its conducive business environment, benefiting the startup considerably.

Shortly after arriving in Tallinn, Vocal Image joined the local accelerator Startup Wise Guys and quickly gained recognition as a success story due to its rapid expansion. Lakhoika mentioned that the startup accomplished $6.5 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) with less than $1 million in pre-seed funding.

Recently, the company secured $3.6 million in a seed funding round led by French edtech venture capital firm Educapital, with additional support from Estonia’s Specialist VC and Germany’s Generations Fund, as reported by TechCrunch.

As of August, the startup announced $12 million in ARR and approximately 50,000 paying subscribers, according to Lakhoika. With a team of 20, primarily composed of Belarusian expatriates, Vocal Image aims to expand its development team and offer language options beyond English, including Spanish, German, French, Ukrainian, and Russian.

This recent funding comes shortly after Vocal Image was recognized as one of the top five winners in the European AI Startup Program by Hugging Face, Meta, and Scaleway amid growing competition. For instance, the edtech firm Headway recently introduced an AI-enhanced speech trainer for its social skills app, Skillsta. Nevertheless, Vocal Image is well-positioned to leverage its GDPR-compliant AI features.

Processing around 35,000 recordings daily, Vocal Image has amassed over 1 million real-voice samples. This dataset is further enriched by a community feature called Voice Rating, which allows users to evaluate whether others’ voices appear “confident” or “childlike.”

Such a dataset is vital for applications like Vocal Image to enhance their effectiveness and can also support AI startups in advancing their synthetic voice technology, providing additional momentum for the startup beyond its B2C focus.