Buddy.ai, first AI tutor for kids under 12, closes $11 million in seed funding

To achieve the fourth Sustainable Development Goal of universal basic education, the world faces the challenge of addressing a critical shortage of 40 million primary and secondary teachers by 2030. Limited personnel and funding resources make this a daunting goal, which is why AI startup Buddy.ai has stepped in to help fill these gaps.

Buddy.ai is the world’s first conversational AI tutor for kids, aiming to make one-on-one tutoring accessible to every child globally and tackle the teacher shortage with AI.

In its latest move to advance AI in early learning, Buddy.ai today announced an $11 million Seed funding round, bringing its total funding to $13 million. The round was led by BITKRAFT Ventures, a prominent global investment platform for gaming and interactive media, alongside Educapital, Europe’s largest edtech fund.

Additional backers include One Way Ventures, J Ventures, Point72 Ventures, and Goodwater Capital, as well as notable angel investors like the co-founder of Oculus, former Riot Games executives, and Hollywood producers from iconic series such as The Simpsons.

This diverse group of investors reflects the appeal of Buddy.ai’s award-winning app, which features an animated robot named Buddy. Buddy engages students under 12 through research-based, gamified lessons and real-time conversations, teaching them English in a fun, natural, and significantly more affordable way than traditional tutoring.

With this new funding, Buddy.ai plans to drive AI advancements in early learning, further develop its app’s gaming and interactive features, and expand partnerships with schools and educational institutions.

Founded in 2024 by Ivan Crewkov (CEO), Dmitry Stavisky, and Dima Plotnikov, Buddy.ai offers high-quality, affordable tutoring to over 20 million children each year through its AI-driven, interactive tutor, Buddy the Robot. Built with proprietary technology tailored for children, Buddy is safe, fast, and COPPA-compliant, using voice- and tap-based games in an engaging, child-friendly digital world crafted by educational experts and top game designers.

Buddy AI

The diverse investor lineup—from AI to gaming to entertainment—reflects Buddy.ai’s unique approach. Buddy, a fully interactive robot, engages students in real time, teaching English through lively conversations and activities. Research indicates that interactive, conversational personas can enhance learning outcomes for young children, making Buddy’s game-based, story-driven lessons ideal for early learners who thrive through play.

Buddy.ai’s mission is clear: to ensure children everywhere can access personalized tutoring through AI. According to UNESCO, 69 million teachers are needed globally to achieve universal basic education. With such a large shortfall, AI tutoring is emerging as a fast, accessible solution. Buddy, initially focused on English language learning, has now added an Early Learning Course, with more subjects to come.

Reflecting on the platform’s origins, Crewkov said, “Buddy.ai was inspired by watching my daughter’s struggles as an immigrant learning a new language in a new country. The Buddy.ai team believes that personalized education is a right and not a privilege, and every child deserves a personal tutor, so when we look towards the future of the platform, we see every child in the world as a potential student.”

Buddy.ai has been fine-tuning its proprietary Speech Recognition technology for over four years to provide exceptional voice-based interaction, long before ChatGPT sparked a broader AI surge. Unlike most AI trained on adult voices, Buddy’s Speech Recognition (BSR) technology is COPPA-compliant and optimized for children’s voices, boasting over 25,000 hours of children’s speech data, outperforming standard systems from Google and other providers.

With more than 50 million downloads and reaching over 20 million students annually, Buddy.ai saw 22 million downloads in 2023 alone, marking a 92% growth in monthly active users and a 93% increase in monthly recurring revenue year-over-year. Buddy’s appeal spans continents, with nearly half its user base in Latin America and a growing presence in English-speaking countries. Buddy’s new Early Learning Course for English-speaking children aged 4-7 in the U.S. led to a 350% growth over the previous year.

Beyond children, Buddy has impressed the educational community, earning accolades like inclusion in Time Magazine’s World’s Top EdTech Rising Stars of 2024, the Global EdTech Startup Award (GESA) Innovation Winner title, and recognition at South Summit and the EnlightED Awards.

Jasper Brand, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures, commented, “The traditional 1-on-1 teacher-to-child education model is unaffordable for many families and not scalable for teachers. Buddy.ai is uniquely positioned with a threefold combination of technical depth, expertise in Early Learning, and a knack for positively engaging content. Kids have a higher learning efficacy when their personal learning journey is met with dynamically adjusting difficulty levels and amplified when engaged with a fun IP. It gets even better when you can democratize access to great learning experiences for an underserved global population.”

Visit Buddy.ai or download their app on the Apple App Store or Google Play.