为企业员工提升语言沟通技能,Lingo Live 获 520 万美元 A 轮融资
自 90 年代起,科技初创企业就开始尝试让语言学习在没有人类指导的情况下依然具有可行性。之后,社交媒体和智能手机兴起,更是出现了一大波语言学习应用程序,例如 Duolingo、英语口语学习平台 OKPanda 以及 Lingua.ly 等。但是 Lingo Live 的 CEO Tyler Muse 表示,没有现实中的教师来教授课程,学员无法达到专业语言水准。
1 月 12 日,面向企业员工的语言学习平台 Lingo Live 宣布获得 520 万美元 A 轮融资,由 Owl Ventures 领投,公司早期投资者 Entrepreneurs Expansion Fund、Alpine Meridian Ventures 和 Fresco Capital 参投,公司计划利用本轮融资招聘并培训更多的导师,改进匹配算法和营销工作,并进一步拓展市场,为高潜力的专业人士提供语言教授服务。
Lingo Live 创立于 2012 年,总部位于纽约,致力于面向企业雇员,为他们提供职业工作中所需要的语言和沟通技能。Lingo Live 会对学员与导师进行匹配,不仅仅是根据语言种类,还需要考虑到学员的学习风格、目标、需要发展的具体语言技能以及计划学习的时间等。学员可以选择自己想要提升的技能,例如是需要学习简洁的电子邮件写作还是发表演讲用,等等。
Lingo Live 平台可以在电脑桌面以及移动设备上运行,学员可以根据自己时间与导师约定线上学习课程。企业按照学习员工数量交费,通常课程延续时间为半年到一年时间,当然,员工也可以只选择一个月的学习计划。平台主要为英语为非母语的学员提供英语学习课程,但同时也提供法语、日语、汉语、葡萄牙语以及西班牙语课程。
Muse 表示,大多数语言学习应用程序,甚至辅导平台,只能帮助学员对于非母语掌握到基本的熟练程度,无法针对个人特定需求进行专项培训。Lingo Live 能够帮助员工获得他们在职业生涯发展过程中所需要提升的语言和沟通技能。
Owl Ventures 的合作伙伴 Amit Patel 表示,公司之所以会投资 Lingo Live 是由于看到了它的发展数据,让人印象深刻。Lingo Live 平台自 2014 年推出以来,收入保持每月 20% 的增长幅度,公司培训了 180 名导师,平台学员满意率超过 98%。
Lingo Live 的竞争者包括同样提供企业客户语言服务的贝立兹(Berlitz)以及 Education First 等。Lingo Live 自创立至今获得融资总额为 629 万美元,公司客户群跨度较大,从全球最大的在线活动票务网站Eventbrite,到 Twitter 和 Holiday Inn 假日酒店等。未来 Lingo Live 将在世界各地设立办事处,并在其平台上增加新的语言种类。
本文来自翻译:growth-media.com
Atlassian + Trello: changing the way teams work,Atlassian4.25亿美金收购Trello!
本次交易绝大多数以现金(3.6亿美元)交易,剩余的用以支付限制的股票和期权。此次收购预计将在2017年3月31日之前完成。
When we founded Atlassian 15 years ago, it seemed obvious to us that software could help teams work better together. But in those days most software companies were focused on developing for personal productivity. We felt that using tools designed for individuals to accomplish teamwork is a bit like using scissors to mow your lawn. You can do it, but it’s a lot harder than it needs to be. That’s why we focused on building for teams from day one.
Fast forward to today and there are still surprisingly few companies building software for teams. One company that has had breakout success is Trello. Over the past five years, Trello has grown to over 19 million registered users by solving an important problem: capturing and adding structure to fluid, fast-forming work.
Trello’s pioneering use of an intuitive visual system has been embraced by all kinds of teams to do everything from managing marketing campaigns to tracking action items from team meetings. Organizations in nearly every country and as varied as the Red Cross and Google have adopted Trello to get work done.
Today, I am thrilled to announce that we have entered into an agreement to acquire Trello and add their amazing product to our growing family.
Choosing the right tool for your team
Atlassian’s mission is to unleash the potential in every team. That’s a big mission. In Trello we found a group that is as dedicated to helping teams get stuff done as we are. In fact, we have identical milestones towards achieving our missions: for our tools to be used by 100M people.
Atlassian tools are built to help all teams organize, discuss and complete their work. By adding Trello to the Atlassian family, we’re giving teams more choice in the tools they use to support the way that they want to work.
Trello will become an important part of the Atlassian portfolio, offering a fun new way for teams to organize the often messy range of information that feeds into great teamwork. Its card system is intuitive, easy to use, and instantly familiar, which has made it extremely popular with teams across marketing, legal, HR, sales and beyond.
One of Trello’s strengths is its flexibility. You control how the board looks and operates so you can mold it to how your team works, and track progress in stages that reflect your processes. You can take this flexibility a step further by integrating the tools you already use with Trello as Power-Ups that extend the functionality of the boards to meet your team’s unique needs.
The JIRA family of products will continue providing purpose-built experiences such as JIRA Software, the #1 tool for agile software teams; JIRA Service desk, a beautifully simple service desk solution for IT and business teams; and JIRA Core for project and process management.
JIRA tools excel at work that benefits from a well-defined, traceable, and repeatable process, whilst Confluence is great for teams creating and collaborating on documents and rich content. Trello perfectly fills a gap between the structured workflows of JIRA and the free-form collaboration of Confluence and will give teams the option to find the right Atlassian tool for the type of work they need to complete. Keep an eye out for integrations between these products in the near future.
What happens now
We’re thrilled to welcome the talented Trello team to Atlassian and look forward to working with them to change the way teams work together. Deep investments in R&D have long been a cornerstone of Atlassian’s business and we will continue that tradition with Trello.
If you currently use Trello as either a free or paid user, you can rest assured that we will continue to offer Trello as a standalone service. We’ll be working with their product team to help them accelerate development efforts. If you are an Atlassian user, I encourage you to set up an account on Trello and check out how it might work for your team.
Teams have always been the critical element of successful organizations. We’re excited about the opportunities that lie ahead in unleashing the potential of every team.