Lingua.ly 融资 100 万美元，欲将互联网变成语言学习工具
语言学习应用 Lingua.ly 已经完成 100 万美元融资，投资方包括乌蒂·尼特泽（Udi Netzer）、沙伊·莱帕里（Shai Rephaeli）、Yochy Investments 和 Seed Fund 1776 等天使投资人或投资机构。Lingua.ly 的目标是将学生从枯燥的传统语言学习模式中解脱出来。
Lingua.ly 的网站和应用会基于词汇表和每名用户的兴趣，从互联网上抓取文章。2014 年 4 月份，Lingua.ly推出了免费的安卓版应用（现在 iOS 版应用也已上线），当时 TechCrunch 网站对这家创业公司进行了报道。
随着新一轮融资的完成，Lingua.ly 的融资总额已经达到 180 万美元。语言学家、Lingua.ly 公关负责人梅雷迪思·塞西莉亚（Meredith Circerchia）表示，该公司会利用新的融资将 Lingua.ly 免费工具推向新的平台和新的市场，这些工具目前已作为 Chrome 扩展件和安卓版和 iOS 版应用上线。Lingua.ly 计划通过高级会员功能来创收，它将在今年晚些时候将这种功能整合到网页端和应用上。
Lingua.ly 对于想要学习各种语言的人来说是一个非常棒的学习工具，因为它上面配有抽认卡（flashcard），抽认卡有提前录制的发音、词典和重复性游戏来帮助学员记住单词，同时软件上还有多种文章可供浏览，文章中出现的词汇是常用的，而不像传统课本中经常出现的单词那么正式和呆板。
“根据从上下文获取词汇方面所做的研究，我们获得了 Lingua.ly 的算法，”塞西莉亚说。“它推算出你对一门外语掌握的词汇量，然后在报纸上专门为你找到一些文章，这些文章中的大部分词汇是你认识的。”
“这是因为当你熟悉句中的大多数词汇时，你便可以根据上下文推测新词的含义。即使你猜错了，花费一些精力思考一个词的含义，也有助于加深记忆，”她补充说。
根据用户兴趣提供更加全面的上下文和量身定制的内容，恰恰是 Lingua.ly 区别于其他语言学习软件（如 多邻国和 Memrise）的地方，也可以成为其他软件的有益补充。塞西莉亚说，Lingua.ly 主要是针对已经掌握了大量词汇的中高级学生，这些学生还想要改善和巩固他们的语言技能。
Lingua.ly 应用已支持 10 种语言：英语、法语、西班牙语、意大利语、葡萄牙语、德语、荷兰语、俄语、阿拉伯语和希伯来语。学习其他语言的用户可以自己制作抽认卡，在 Lingua.ly 字典中查找词汇，但是他们享受不到发音和查找相关文章的妙处。很多人还要求该公司添加北欧和亚洲的一些语言。今年晚些时候，Lingua.ly 有望添加几种语言，并优化支持印度语和波斯语等语言的词典。
Lingua.ly 将来的功能将基于语言的自然形成过程，这有助于它针对每个用户对文章进行量身定做，并且更加多样化。塞西莉亚表示，这个网站及相关软件将为初学者增添更多学习工具并向多媒体方向发展，因为初学者还没有深入阅读文章的能力。同时，Lingua.ly 也在开发适合教室使用的功能，如老师可以使用的电子板。
Lingua.ly, Which Turns The Internet Into A Language Textbook, Raises $1M
Lingua.ly, which saves language students from the tedium of traditional textbooks, has raised $1 million. Participants in the round include Udi Netzer (a returning investor), Shai Rephaeli, Yochy Investments, and Seed Fund 1776.
The site and apps pulls articles from the web-based on vocabulary lists and each users’ interests. TechCrunch last covered the startup when it launched its free Android app in April 2014 (it is also now available for iOS).
The latest funding brings Lingua.ly’s total raised so far to $1.8 million. Meredith Circerchia, a linguist and the startup’s director of communications and e-learning, says the fresh capital will be used to bring Lingua.ly’s free tools, which are available online as a Chrome extension and as Android and iOS apps, to new platforms and markets. The startup plans to monetize through premium features that it will release on the web and its apps later this year.
Lingua.ly is a nifty tool for aspiring polyglots because it has flashcards with recorded pronunciations, a dictionary, a repetition game to help with memorization, and several categories of articles to browse so users can see the words in common usage, instead of the more formal and stilted examples often found in textbooks.
“The Lingua.ly algorithm is based on research concerning vocabulary acquisition from context,” says Circerchia. “It estimates your vocabulary in a foreign language and then finds newspaper articles that contain mostly words you know.”
“This is because when most of the words in a sentence are familiar to you, you can take a more informed guess at the meaning of new terms. Even if you guess incorrectly, expending extra cognitive energy thinking about a word helps dig the memory in deeper,” she adds.
Providing deeper context and tailoring content to users’ interests is what sets Lingua.ly apart from (and makes it a good complement) to other language learning apps like Duolingo and Memrise. Circherchia says Lingua.ly is targeted at intermediate and advanced students who have already know a lot of vocabulary, but want to improve and maintain their language skills.
The app already has full support for 10 languages: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Russian, Arabic, and Hebrew. Users studying other languages can make flashcards and look up words in Lingua.ly’s dictionary, but they lack the benefit of audio pronunciations and articles. The startup has had a lot of requests for Scandinavian and Asian languages, however, and hopes to add several later this year, as well as better dictionary support for languages like Hindu and Farsi.
Future features will be based on natural language processing technology, which will help Lingua.ly pull up a more personalized and diverse assortment of articles for each user. Circherchia says that the site and app will also add more tools for beginning learners who aren’t ready to dive into articles yet, as well as multimedia. Classroom-oriented features, including a dashboard for teachers, is also in the works.
企业福利平台 AnyPerk 完成 850 万美元 A 轮融资
许多公司正面临 越来越大的压力 ，需要向员工提供更优厚的福利。至少，科技行业就是如此。不过在很多情况下，创业公司没有能力提供与大公司同等水平的福利。在这种情况下，一家创业公司 AnyPerk 愿意提供帮助。
AnyPerk 开发了一款平台，希望帮助各种规模的公司向员工提供福利和折扣信息。该公司今天宣布，已经完成了 850 万美元的新一轮融资。
AnyPerk 的此次 A 轮融资由 DCM Ventures 领投，Digital Garage 参投。作为交易的一部分，DCM 合伙人本多央辅将加入 AnyPerk 董事会。这使得该公司的融资总额超过了 1300 万美元。
AnyPerk 正在快速发展。该公司首席执行官福山太郎表示，自去年夏季 完成种子轮融资 以来，公司的增长率已经超过了 200%。目前，AnyPerk 在美国拥有“数百家”客户。AnyPerk 于 2012 年 诞生自 创业孵化器 YCombinator，位于旧金山，目前有 45 名员工。
AnyPerk 表示，将使用此轮融资去开发一款移动应用，向公司员工推送具有相关性的福利信息。一般情况下，许多员工可能并不清楚这些信息。例如，作为 AnyPerk 的客户，Lyft 的员工将可以获悉，在前往 AMC Theater 看电影时能获得 40%的折扣。此外，该公司也在测试另一项功能，使企业经理可以直接通过 AnyPerk 平台发放现金或礼品卡福利。
值得指出的一点是，AnyPerk 并不是“福利即平台”领域的唯一一家公司。几年前，一家名为 BetterWorks 的公司凭借类似的理念获得了 1050 万美元的投资，但最终 于 2012 年 5 月关闭 。这样的理念在亚洲更容易获得持续的成功。例如，来自新加坡的 Rewards、来自日本的 Benefit One，以及来自马来西亚的 PerkPool 均为这一行业的知名公司。目前，凭借新一轮融资和更明显的发展势头，AnyPerk 希望成为在美国成功引入这一商业模式的第一家公司。
AnyPerk, A Platform For Delivering Perks To Employees, Raises $8.5M In Series A Funding
In the tech industry at least, it seems like the pressure for companies to provide “perks” to their employees has never been higher. But oftentimes, startups don’t have the ability to provide the same level of perks as larger established corporations do. That’s where AnyPerk, a startup itself, wants to help.
AnyPerk, which makes a platform aimed at letting companies of all sizes deliver perks and discounts to their employees, is announcing today it has raised $8.5 million in new funding.
The funding round, which is AnyPerk’s Series A, was led by led by DCM Ventures with participation from Digital Garage. As part of the funding, DCM partner Osuke Honda will join AnyPerk’s board of directors. This brings the total amount of money invested in AnyPerk to more than $13 million.
The new money comes as AnyPerk is purportedly seeing swift growth: The company’s CEO Taro Fukuyama says they’ve grown by more than 200 percent since their seed round closed this past summer, and the company now has “hundreds” of clients in the U.S. AnyPerk, which first launched out of Y Combinator in 2012, is based in San Francisco and currently has 45 employees.
The company tells me they’ll be using the funding to build out a mobile app to push out notifications about relevant perks to employees who may not know they have them (for example, employees of Lyft, an AnyPerk client, would be notified of their 40 percent off AMC Theater ticket discount when they’re at the movies.) Also, the company is working on a beta feature that will let managers or colleagues give spot bonuses in the form of money or gift cards by using the AnyPerk platform.
It bears mention that AnyPerk is not the only company in the perks-as-a-platform world. A few years back, a company called BetterWorks raised $10.5 million for a similar concept, but ultimately shut down in May 2012. The idea has had more lasting success in Asia, where Singapore-based Rewardz, Japan-based Benefit One, and Malaysia-based PerkPool are all notable players. Now, with its new funding and apparent momentum, AnyPerk hopes to be the company that can successfully bring the business model here to the U.S. to stay.
来源：techcrunch.com
为小公司而生的律师匹配服务 Lexoo 获 40 万美元融资
在我自己的创业冒险旅程中，我得出了这样一条结论，无论你是成功还是失败，肯定能赚钱的只有两种人，云服务提供商和律师。关于前者，价格和竞争形势都相当的透明。然而律师费就远非如此了。这正是英国创业公司 Lexoo 正在着手解决的问题。
为了帮助实现这一愿景，这家提供了自称为“律师匹配”服务的伦敦公司刚刚完成了 40 万美元的种子轮投资，投资方为 Forward Partners——一家 由尼克·布里斯伯恩（Nic Brisbourne）领导 的风投公司及创业公司“工厂”——以及乔纳森·麦凯（Jonathan McKay，JustGiving 董事长）。
“对于小公司来说，找到一名优秀律师并在此过程中不挨宰是件难事，”Lexoo 联合创始人兼首席执行官丹尼尔·范·宾斯伯根（Daniel van Binsbergen）解释道，此前他曾是一位专注于金融与并购领域的律师。“名牌律师事务所通常都很棒，但管理费用繁杂，因此每小时收费很高。对于小公司而言，很难知道哪一位律师真的能干，是否擅长这一领域。最后，如果你采用一名推荐律师的话，很难判断你给出的价格是否合理。”
为了解决这一难题——可以将此视作网络将市场变得更加高效透明的经典案例——公司可以根据工作类型需求，通过 Lexoo 平台获得一批精选律师队伍的多方报价。在 Lexoo 平台发布工作后，你会从多个胜任该工作的律师收到富有竞争力的报价，通常在 24 小时内。
“我们确保只有真正擅长于特定法律领域的律师才能为某件工作报价，每一位律师加入平台之前，我们都会对他进行面试，”范·宾斯伯根说道，“客户可以将报价和律师履历进行比较，做出更加明智的决定。我们的卖点在于，帮你找到曾在大型律师事务所摸爬滚打的资深律师，只不过他们现在因为生活方式的原因选择在家工作或者在小公司工作。这一点使得他们的常规报价只有之前每小时费用的一半左右。”
为此 Lexoo 不收取客户费用，不过律师需要将任何通过这一平台拿到的工作报酬的 10%作为佣金付给这家创业公司。
Lexoo Scores $400K For Its Lawyer-Matching Service For Small Businesses
During my own startup adventures, I came to the conclusion that, succeed or fail, the only people guaranteed to make money are cloud providers and lawyers. With regards to the former, pricing and competition is fairly transparent. But legal fees, not so much. That’s the problem UK startup Lexoo has set out to solve.
To help with that mission, the London-based company, which offers what it calls a ‘lawyer-matching’ service, has just scored a $400k seed round from Forward Partners — the venture firm and startup ‘foundry’ headed up by Nic Brisbourne — and Jonathan McKay (Chairman of JustGiving).
“It’s difficult for small businesses to find a good lawyer and not get overcharged in the process,” explains Lexoo co-founder and CEO Daniel van Binsbergen, who previously worked as a lawyer focussing on finance and M&A. “Brand name law firms are usually great but have a lot of overheads and therefore high hourly rates. With smaller firms it is hard to know which lawyers are actually good and specialised. Finally, if you go with a recommended lawyer it is hard to judge whether the price you are quoted makes sense or not.”
To tackle this — in what can be considered a classic example of how markets can be made more efficient and transparent by moving them online — Lexoo enables businesses to get multiple quotes from a curated line-up of lawyers, based on the type of work required. After posting a job, you receive multiple and competitive quotes from the qualified lawyers on the platform, usually within 24 hours.
“We make sure that only lawyers who are actually specialised in a certain area of law are invited to quote for a job and we screen and interview every single lawyer before they can join the platform,” says van Binsbergen. “Customers can then compare the quotes and lawyer profiles and make a much more educated decision. Our sweet spot is finding lawyers who trained at the largest firms but for lifestyle reasons are working at home, virtually or in a small office. This enables them to usually charge only 50 per cent of their previous hourly rates.”
To that end, Lexoo is free for clients, but lawyers pay the startup a 10 per cent commission on any work they obtain through the platform.
来源：techcrunch
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