Multilango was co-founded by Łukasz Skrzypek, Michał Paszko, and Cezary Chałupa, and develops a platform enabling employers to offer foreign language learning as an employee benefit. Currently, the platform provides access to instructors of sixteen different languages, from English and German to less common ones like Korean or Japanese. Its team consists of 5 people and about 150 foreign language tutors. This month, the startup secured €400,000 from Pathfinder and EKIPA Investments.
In the Startup of the Day column, Cezary Chałupa, the co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Multilango, shares the details about the startup’s idea, its product, and future plans.
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The idea behind Multilango is very simple — it’s a platform for companies that want to meet the expectations of their employees and offer them the benefit of learning foreign languages in the most modern way possible. With the subscription, an employee can learn one or several languages of their choice. The learning takes place online in a one-on-one format, with experienced instructors tailored to the user’s needs and proficiency level.
How did you come up with the startup’s idea? What was the reason/motivation behind it?
A few years ago, the thought occurred to us that subscription-based sports cards are currently one of the most widespread employee benefit, essentially becoming as popular as private healthcare.
The second thought was: has anyone done something similar for language learning? It turned out that in Poland, and upon deeper research, in other countries as well, there was a gap in this area. Thus, the idea for the business was born.
How long did it take to reach the prototype or MVP? What did you encounter?
The preparation of the MVP took about 8 months. We knew exactly what we wanted because we had previously conducted a Proof of Concept, which gave us the comfort of bypassing many challenges characteristic of new products. So, we practically encountered no significant obstacles.
When exactly did you launch your product? Or when the launch is planned?
We launched the product in the market in the fall of 2022, and that’s when the first customers appeared.
Tell us about the startup’s business model. How do you monetize your product?
We provide a subscription-based service. First, we sign a framework agreement with the employer who wants to provide our service to their employees, and then every month, we invoice a subscription fee based on the number of users the employer gives access to our service.
What are your target markets and consumers?
Experience shows that corporations, as well as medium and large companies, have budgets for employee development, so it’s natural that we contact them first. We also work with international corporations.
In reality, neither the size of the company nor the client’s industry has much significance for us. We love them all,
As for geographic markets, we started in Poland, but currently, companies from other countries are using our service because our clients often have subsidiaries abroad. The platform has been prepared from day one to serve clients worldwide.
If the startup has already launched the product, what are the results: metrics, income, or any clear indicators that can be evaluated.
Currently, we are working with the first few dozen corporate clients, and last year, we crossed the one million PLN revenue mark (about €250,000) for the first time.
What about your team? How many people are working in the startup? If you’re looking for new employees, indicate whom exactly.
Our team currently consists of 5 people and about 150 foreign language tutors. More people will join this year, and we are always on the lookout for good teachers.
Have you already raised any investments? Provide us with more details on each funding round: the amount, investors, the purpose of the investment.
So far, we have gone through two funding rounds: pre-seed and seed. In the pre-seed round, the Czysta3.vc fund joined us, and in the seed round, we gained support from the Tar Heel Capital Pathfinder and Ekipa Investments funds, as well as a private investor.
In total, we have raised nearly €690,000 (PLN 3 million) in funding. Of course, the pre-seed round was allocated for creating the MVP and entering the market, while the seed round will mainly serve market expansion but also further product development.
Our future plans primarily to increase Mulrilango’s presence in the market and scale sales, as well as to further develop the product’s functionalities, including work on machine learning and speech recognition features. We have big ambitions in this regard.
