Vocal Image: AI-Powered Tools for Better Communication
▼ Summary
– Vocal Image is an Estonia-based startup with an AI-powered app that helps users improve voice and communication skills through exercises and personalized feedback.
– CEO Nick Lahoika founded the company inspired by his personal journey overcoming speaking anxiety and unclear diction with help from vocal coach Maryna Shukiurava.
– The startup has achieved significant growth with 4 million downloads, $12 million in annual recurring revenue, and recently raised a $3.6 million seed round led by Educapital.
– Vocal Image has built a valuable dataset with over 1 million real-voice samples collected from user recordings, which helps improve its AI accuracy and has potential applications beyond consumer use.
– The founding team consists of Belarusian exiles who relocated to Estonia due to political repression, and the company now plans to expand its development team and add more language localizations.
Vocal Image, an Estonia-based startup, has rapidly gained traction with over 4 million app downloads, offering AI-powered tools designed to help users enhance their voice and communication abilities. The platform provides an accessible, subscription-based alternative to traditional one-on-one coaching, allowing individuals to practice comfortably from home.
The company’s origin story is deeply personal. CEO Nick Lahoika, who was born in Belarus and only began learning English after moving to Estonia, once struggled with speech anxiety and unclear diction. After working with vocal coach Maryna “Rusia” Shukiurava, he discovered that communication skills could be systematically improved. This experience inspired the creation of Vocal Image, which began as a YouTube channel before evolving into a full-fledged coaching app.
The platform features an extensive interactive library that includes tongue twisters, breathing exercises, and gesture advice, all enhanced by artificial intelligence to deliver automated feedback and personalized recommendations. This technological edge was strengthened with the addition of co-founder and CTO Mikalai Karaliou.
While many users turn to Vocal Image for professional development, such as improving public speaking, leadership qualities, or presentation skills, the app also supports those seeking greater self-confidence. It has found a particular resonance within the LGBTQ+ community, reflecting Shukiurava’s previous advocacy work in Belarus.
The founding team themselves are among the many Belarusian entrepreneurs who left their home country following the violent crackdown on protests against President Alexander Lukashenko. Lahoika chose Estonia for its supportive business climate, a decision that has clearly paid off.
After joining the Tallinn-based accelerator Startup Wise Guys, Vocal Image experienced rapid growth, reaching $6.5 million in annual recurring revenue with less than $1 million in pre-seed funding. More recently, the company secured a $3.6 million seed round led by French edtech investor Educapital, with participation from Estonia’s Specialist VC and Germany’s Generations Fund.
As of August, the startup reports $12 million in ARR and approximately 50,000 paying users. With a team of 20, largely composed of Belarusian expatriates, Vocal Image is expanding its development capacity and adding more language localizations to serve a broader audience.
The company was recently selected by Hugging Face, Meta, and Scaleway as one of five winners in their European AI Startup Program. This recognition comes at a time of growing competition, with rivals like Headway introducing similar AI voice training features. However, Vocal Image benefits from a unique asset: a vast, compliant database of over 1 million real-voice samples, gathered from about 35,000 daily recordings.
A standout feature called Voice Rating enables the community to label recordings based on qualities like “confident” or “childlike,” creating a rich, human-annotated dataset. This resource not only improves the app’s coaching accuracy but also holds potential value for AI firms looking to refine synthetic voices, opening additional opportunities beyond the startup’s core consumer market.
(Source: TechCrunch)
