Contxto – Sometimes you can plan something out to the tiniest of details. But life and Covid-19 have a way of changing things for the worse—or better in edtech Políglota’s case. The startup has been experiencing growth in recent weeks as users across Latin America jump onto its app to learn a new language.
Prior to the pandemic, it had been operating in Mexico, Peru, and its native Chile. However self-isolation has brought on students from Nicaragua and Colombia as well. It also expects to land in Ecuador. With so much scaling, Políglota is opening an investment round to expand its team and fund its marketing efforts.
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Chilean language learning app
Coronavirus would put Políglota and its app on death row.
“As soon as we knew this crisis was coming, on March 15, we sat down with our entire team and knew we had to shift gears very quickly,” recalls Nicolás Fuenzalida, co-Founder at Políglota.
“We’d been arranging over 1,500 monthly sessions where people physically met up in hundreds of cafeterias throughout Latin America and this [outbreak] was a death sentence for our model. ”
Certainly bringing users and teachers together to talk in-person and practice a language through its platform wasn’t compatible with self-isolation. As a result, the startup launched a service for users to learn a language (mainly English) online. It was reportedly so well-received by current users, that more classes were opened.
- Related article: Duolingo Review. First-time user, it’s free but is it good?
Políglota hopes that through an investment round, it can reach students in São Paulo (Brazil) and Miami (the United States).
So, how many languages have you picked up these last couple of months while confined to your couch at home? Or perhaps you’ve downloaded half a dozen apps to get started?
Either way you’ve got me beat. My score in both tasks stands at zero.
pandemic has made a winner out of edtech políglota
" data-image-caption="pandemic has made a winner out of edtech políglota
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-ML
