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Babbel

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This article is about Software. For German football player and coach, see Markus Babbel.
Lesson Nine GmbH
Company typePrivately Held Corporation
IndustryE-Learning
FoundedAugust 2007; 17 years ago (2007-08)
HeadquartersBerlin, Germany
Key people
Markus Witte (CEO), Thomas Holl (CTO), Lorenz Heine (CInO)
Number of employees
110 permanent employees, approx. 150 freelancers [1]
Websitewww.babbel.com

Babbel is an online language learning software and e-learning platform available in various languages since January 2008. Fourteen languages are currently offered: Dutch, Danish, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Spanish and Turkish. According to babbel.com, it has over 1,000,000 active subscribers.[2]

Concept

Babbel courses may be completed within the learner's web browser, not through an installable program. There are beginner and grammar courses, vocabulary lessons, as well as courses with tongue-twisters, sayings and songs. Courses for a given language may aimed at a specific audience: for instance, English may be learned as "PR English" or "Marketing English" based on the learner's profession. Babbel courses are also available as apps for mobile devices : iPhone and iPad apps are available in the App Store,[3] Babbel Android Apps are available in Google Play store,[4] Windows Phone Apps are available through the Windows Phone store,[5] while Windows 8 and Windows RT Apps are available through the Windows App Store.[6] Courses are multimedia-focused to help with pronunciation. Babbel users may communicate with each other through the software, using the message boards, profile pages and private messaging.

Recognitions and Awards

2013 Babbel has received the "digita 2013" award and the "Innovative 4 Society" on the CeBIT. In 2011 Babbel was awarded the "Comenius EduMedia Seal" and the "Erasmus EuroMedia Seal of Approval"[7] for „Babbel for Companies“,[8] courses targeted at the business sector. Among others, Babbel counts hotel.de-AG as one of their business clients. Babbel also received the "European Award for Technology Supported Learning (eureleA)" for best technical implementation. The language learning platform was one of the finalists for "Best Web Application or Service (EMEA)" in TechCrunch’s Europe Awards 2009.

Development

Babbel is operated by Lesson Nine GmbH in Berlin, Germany. The company was founded in August 2007. In January 2008, the language learning platform went online with community features as a free beta version. By the first year, Babbel already had 180,000 members from 200 countries. In 2008, Kizoo Technology Ventures and IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbh became Babbel.com’s first investors. Then in 2009, Babbel.com was granted about one million Euros by the ERDF European Structural Fund. The new product version Babbel 2.0 went online in November, 2009. At that time Lesson Nine founders decided against an advertising and mixed-finance (Freemium) model and opted for paid content. Babbel has around 90 full-time employees and freelancers. The company is located in the Berlin neighbourhood of Kreuzberg.

In March 2013 Babbel acquired San Francisco startup PlaySay Inc. to strategically position themselves to expand into the U.S. market.[9] PlaySay was a 2011 TechCrunch Disrupt Finalist that had a #1 ranked language learning iOS application[10] and premium content deals with McGraw Hill Professional and HarperCollins.[11] As part of the acquisition, PlaySay Founder and CEO Ryan Meinzer joined Babbel as a strategic advisor for its US operations. “With an affordable price point and focus on mobile, Babbel.com is poised to usurp giants like Rosetta Stone who have neglected the majority of the users in the USA market that spend up to $100 each year on self-study language learning products,” he says. “The winner of the race in language-learning software will be the one that does mobile the best and Babbel.com will be well positioned in the principal USA market armed with the acquisition of PlaySay.”[12]

In March 2013 Babbel secured $10 million in Series B funding led by Reed Elsevier Ventures.[13]

The name

The word Babbel is the imperative mood of Template:Link language babbeln, to chat[14] It is also a pun on the biblical Tower of Babel—a gigantic ziggurat whose construction was interrupted when the worker' languages were made mutually unintelligible by God. The same motif was used in naming the Babel fish from Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a parasitic fish that serves as a universal translator. Lastly, babbeln means to speak in the Hessian dialect of Germany.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Lesson Nine GmbH – dasauge®". Dasauge.de. 2014-09-15. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ "Verbindung zum iTunes Store wird hergestellt". Itunes.apple.com. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
  4. ^ "Babbel – Learn Languages - Android Apps on Google Play". Play.google.com. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
  5. ^ "Windows Phone Apps - Microsoft Store". Windowsphone.com. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
  6. ^ "Search Results - Microsoft Windows". windows.microsoft.com. Microsoft.
  7. ^ "European Society for Education and Communication". Euromediaawards.eu. 2014-10-10. Retrieved 2015-12-22.
  8. ^ [2] Archived January 5, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ Leach, Anna (March 22, 2013). "Berlin E-Learning Startup Babbel Buys Out San Francisco Rival". Wall Street Journal.
  10. ^ Meinzer, Ryan (May 13, 2012). "PlaySay is #1". PlaySay.
  11. ^ Lunden, Ingrid (March 21, 2013). "German Language Learning Startup Babbel Buys Disrupt Finalist PlaySay To Target The U.S. Market". TechCrunch.
  12. ^ Sawers, Paul (March 21, 2013). "Money talks: Language-learning startup Babbel acquires & shutters PlaySay as it eyes US and mobile growth". The Next Web.
  13. ^ Butcher, Mike (March 26, 2013). "Language Startup Babbel Closes $10M Series B Funding To Expand Globally, Build Team". TechCrunch.
  14. ^
    Look up babbel in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Look up babbel in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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