Ello raises $15M for an AI reading coach that listens to kids read aloud at home

Subscription reading app for kindergarten through Grade 3 that listens to children read aloud and delivers five hand-picked books a month for $24.99.

A parent-facing app with child speech recognition that gives phonics-based help, without tests or progress markers, can deliver 1:1 reading tutoring at home.

$15M Series A, adding to funding led by Project A, plus Y Combinator, WndrCo, Reach Capital and Khosla Ventures.

Ello was founded in 2019 by clinical psychologist Elizabeth Adams, Tom Sayer, formerly head of impact and adoption programs at Google for Education, and engineer Catalin Voss, a Stanford AI PhD candidate. It launched through Y Combinator in March 2020 as a service to partner with parents on child development.

After speaking with hundreds of parents, the founders found the pandemic had severely hurt reading, and Adams saw her own daughter struggle to learn reading over Zoom. They built the reading app on proprietary speech recognition that waits for a child to finish a page, then corrects mispronunciations and missed words using phonics strategies. Ello is not assessment-based and shows no progress markers, which Adams said keeps it engaging rather than test-like.

In September 2023 Ello announced the $15M Series A with participation from Reed Hastings, Common Sense Growth, Homebrew and Ravensburger. It claimed its coach outperforms OpenAI's Whisper and Google Cloud's speech API, ran pilots with about 30 schools, was integrating generative AI, and was testing a German version. Additional children cost $12.49 a month.

The pandemic had hurt children's reading; Stanford's 2021 study put second- and third-grade fluency about 30% behind a typical year.

Adams saw her own daughter struggle to learn to read over Zoom, which convinced the founders it was a moment to build something better.

Research shows 1:1 tutoring is the most effective learning approach, according to lead investor Goodwater, and Ello aims to deliver that with AI.

Competitor Amira Learning targets educators, leaving the at-home market for Ello's parent-focused app.

Building for parents first, then adding a teacher product later, lets an edtech startup prove engagement before it takes on schools' assessment demands.

As of 7 September 2023, Ello had 10,000 families, 300,000+ books read and pilots with about 30 schools, and was building classroom features with assessment data. It was integrating generative AI, testing a German version and working on bringing the app from tablets to smartphones.