Amsterdam-based Myngle, which operates a platform for online language education, has just secured nearly €1 million euros ($1.25 million) in the form of a bank loan from Rabobank. The loan is backed by the Dutch government through an innovation program. Myngle had earlier secured €800,000 seed investment from the HenQ fund and private individuals.
Myngle, founded by ex-eBay employees, is essentially a “marketplace for languages” where teachers and students can virtually connect and determine if there’s a match for an online course to start between the parties (from both sides). The e-learning platform advocates the use of Skype for video-conference tutoring and accepts online payment transactions via PayPal, so most of the operation is automated and doesn’t involve Myngle staff.
Here’s how they pitch the service on their site:
Myngle is free for students and teachers to sign up and provides an online environment for live individual and group lessons for basically any language and level from any type of teacher. You can choose your own teacher or student depending on your specific needs, availability and price! If you are a student, you can try out a demo lesson with your selected teacher before you have to pay anything.
Myngle claims to have attracted almost 50.000 members in 125 countries since its inception in 2007, and boasts providing language courses in 52 languages. VoxSwap, LiveMocha, Busuu and Babbel offer a similar proposition.
Coincidentally, the startup is one of the 20 finalists that will be pitching at the Plugg conference in Brussels next week (which I organize), so we’ll be able to share more about their future plans then.
Below is a screenshot and a cheesy introduction video about Myngle.
Unfortunately, we were unable to confirm if all the female teachers are as hot as Milagros.
this is great!
Of course, Sarah Lacy would not believe it is possible:
“… money and deal flow is holding up as well as they say [Index Ventures] across the pond…”
What a dork.
I didn’t know reading Dutch was so easy.
I don’t even need Myngle!
Please shut up, you spammer!
I’m a bit skeptical about this kind of language learning websites because I have not found any success about learning a foreign language through a web site until now. I also cannot remember of any person around me online or offline who have got any tangible benefit when it comes to learning a language through a website.
I quite like popupchinese.com and chinesepod.com for mandarin. Other languages seem less developed technologically, although the languagepod101.com people seem to have quite a few up and running and I’m considering Arabic.
I remember seeing Myngle ages ago and thinking it looked interesting. Problem is I’m a cheapskate and don’t like to pay for much of anything online. So I’d much prefer seeing innovation in the business model supporting language learning services than in the entire digital middleman thing.
Congrats to Myngle!
Another great language learning website I would like to add is http://www.busuu.com!
busuu.com is excellent, and it is free!
This and the others are intriguing ideas, but the the value comes through a curriculum. It seems like there is some effort put into it though. I would go for more of a group instruction in real life kind of approach that could be balanced out with class time. For example, going to the zoo, would be an excellent place to learn vocabulary and grammar in a practical setting.
Other sites which actually are more like Myngle (both of which are much much better, I think) are eduFire and WizIQ. Myngle’s falling apart at the seems, so I’ll be interested to see how this loan affects them. Can 1.25 million dollars fix their angry community? We shall see, we shall see.
maybe you should take an English lesson on Myngle it’s “seams” not “seems”
“Unfortunately, we were unable to confirm if all the female teachers are as hot as Milagros.”
Awesome line Robin! I like you are bringing the dutch bluntness into the posts here on Techcrunch.
After living for 3 years in the US, I miss that in particular!
Keep it coming
Dennis
I’m Belgian, but thanks
Even better
At least we can talk.
Sukkels – pssttttt
I can confirm that all the female teachers are as hot as Milagros. (Disclaimer: my girlfriend is a teacher on Myngle)
In all seriousness, it’s really nice and I feel like the teachers there are very competent and provide a nice and fun learning experience.
I think China-based iTalki is better than all of the sites you mentioned.
However, from a business perspective, I think there are fundamental problems with trying to be the eBay of live voice-based instructional services. eBay succeeds as a natural monopoly because its goods are physical. However there is no natural monopoly that applies when the goods are service-based. Some of these businesses might succeed in providing income for a few employees. However, I’m not sure whether they can ever reap VC-style gains.
Thank you Robin for your review!
On Myngle we are very happy and confident about the future!
We are working to have more and more teachers as hot as Milagros
I’ve using Myngle for a few months now and it’s truly excellent. I’ve been learning Turkish(my girlfriend is from Turkey) and both my teacher and the service have amazed me. I highly recommend anybody trying it!
Thanks sooo much dear Pascal
My gifted student and the future diplomat !
Hope to meet in Istanbul-Turkey one day.
See you
amicamia
yasemin
nothing new here.
Japanese owned worldia.net has been around a fair bit longer, and “the focus on skype” tagline was used much earlier by them too.
@koichi ko:
of course you think that edufire is better, you are an edufire team member, saw you in an edufire t-shirt in a picture and in a video on their homepage. On the edufire blog there is a picture of you and the team. here’s the link
http://blog.edu...ire.com/page/4/
Kind of biased opinion don’t you think?
LOL!!!!
My wife is learning Norwegian via Myngle here in Amsterdam (where people speak Dutch) from a teacher in Seattle, she loves it.
A loan will never replace the monies coming from real customers and so the validity of Myngle business model is still uncertain.
Hello,
as a Myngle team member I am really happy to read this article and all the comments to it. I agree that in the end real costumers will prove the quality of the service, so from our side we will continue on improving the platform and take the new challenges ahead of us with the Myngle positive spirit
,
Elisa
Hi all,
My name is Marina Tognetti, the founder of Myngle.
Thank you for your comments and input, which we always value as you can learn from your users as well as other constructive feedback.
I personally think that LiveMocha is a great system, the results achieved to date prove this and we look at them as example of a successful player in this new and growing online learning industry. Same for Chinesepod, they bring scalability to language education.
Myngle has a somewhat different approach. Its aim is to provide a good learning experience to students that are serious about learning a foreign language. This means strong focus on quality of teaching in the broader sense, from the selection and training and certification of teachers (out of 3000 registered on Myngle, only 10% are currently visible on the platform to teach), good content (we are working hard on this), as well as helping students make the right choice of programs and teachers that best fit their needs.
That said, I am glad there are very good players out there like LiveMocha, as the challenge for all of us at this moment is not competition, but opening a new segment and bringing a $ 20 billion industry online. We all are facing the same challenge as pioneers in this new segment. We are now probably covering 0,1% (or less?) of this market. 99,9% is still out there for us.
So, if we all work well and we build credibility amongst the huge potential pool of students who are still learning in the offline world, we all win.
@ Robin: thank you for the review. I will be glad to meet you in Brussels next week (Plugg)
@ Razib Ahmed: why don’t you just give it a try? We have students who took A LOT of (paid) lessons, so I think they must be happy with the experience. A test lesson is free, but if you mail us we will give you a free coupon for a paid lesson as well. So the risk is on us.
@ Gabe & Michel Nizon: agree with you both, the proof is in making sufficient money with the business model. Especially now, in a moment of economic downturn, it is critical to turn curious visitors into repeat, paying customers in order to turn this into a long term business. That is why we are focusing on the more serious students, those who are willing to pay for learning a language.
In any case, I do not think we have all the answers ready now, but we have been learning enormously in these first 14 months of ‘Myngle life’, developing and moving forward at a fast pace.
What you see now on the platform is just the tip of the iceberg, (much) more to come in the near future. Stay tuned…
Marina
I love myngle and hope it helps me to find some students that want to learn German.
Grüsse
Daniel
I think Myngle does a great job promoting live online language teaching/learning on the Internet. Thanks to huge financial support they got they are able to establish a new standard of e-learning services. However, I hope they will not become a monopolist. I am an optimist because other projects which offer comparable services grow parallel. Have a look at our e-learning platform http://www.komunika.eu. It also offers online one-to-one live lessons but only Polish lessons. Komunika is not just a venue for accidental teachers and their potential students but it trains its own teachers team and develops its own teaching method. It ensures more reliable service. Anyway, I am convinced that live teaching / learning online has great future. I hope this future will be full of diversity (-:
I don’t sure how to ensure the teaching quality on this platform. But I ‘d like to learn language online.I am learning Chinese in :http://www.touchchinese.com which also provides one on one Chinese lessons with native teacher, I feel great.