Babbel Has Acquired Language Learning App PlaySay
Education startup Babbel is wasting no time in its attempts to develop an international presence. The company on Thursday announced the acquisition of San Francisco based PlaySay.
An announcement from PlaySay on its website announced the acquisition and asks its users to give Babbel.com a try.
The move by Babbel will allow it to expand internationally, a big part of the company’s strategy for growth.
PlaySay is a social language learning app for the iPhone that uses real conversations and pronunciation feedback from native speakers of each language it teached.
Babbel currently has a worldwide reach that now includes more than 15 million users. Babbel CEO Markus Witte has announced that the company has already received more than 8 million downloads of its mobile apps. Babbel’s business has been increasing annually by an average of 200 percent.
PlaySay, in the meantime, is a veteran service in terms of the mobile space. The company was founded by Ryan Meinzer in 2008. PlaySay Inc. would go on to become a finalist at the 2011 TechCrunch Disrupt conference. PlaySay ultimately became the #1 rated app in the education category in the USA and nine other countries.
In announcing the acquisition, Markus Witte proclaimed, “Education is going mobile. This acquisition represents a continuation of our strategy to offer a complete range of mobile solutions to language learning and the possibility to leverage market share in the US.”
Ryan Meinzer is joining the Babble.com team to help run Babbel’s US operations.
In its press release, Babbel writes:
“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 <$100/year on self-study language learning products. 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 principle USA market armed with the acquisition of PlaySay.”
PlaySay will leave its application running for at least 45 days.
