Verbling

Verbling is an online language learning platform that connects students with professional language teachers for live, one-on-one lessons delivered through an in-browser video classroom. Learners browse and filter a teacher directory by language, accent and skills, book a free trial lesson, and then schedule paid lessons at times of their choosing. The company states its community includes more than 2,000 verified tutors, all with prior teaching experience, and its site also cites over 10,000 qualified tutors across more than 70 languages.

The learning environment was built to run entirely in the browser, combining video and audio chat, messaging, flashcards, collaborative textpads, image and PDF markup, file management, cloud storage and other learning widgets, with browser extensions for screen sharing and lesson recording. Native iOS and Android apps, launched in February 2017, extend access to mobile devices. Alongside the consumer marketplace, Verbling operates an enterprise offering that adds an administrative layer for organizations: SSO login, SCIM-based provisioning, member invitation and access controls, plan management and payments, and analytics and report generation for tracking employee progress.

Verbling was founded in 2011 by Stanford-affiliated co-founders and participated in Y Combinator's Summer 2011 batch. Its original product, Verbling Friends, matched users wanting to learn each other's languages over video. The platform subsequently added structured courses (2013), study groups, live-streamed classes (later discontinued in favor of private lessons), and an enterprise product (2016). Busuu acquired Verbling in January 2020, and Chegg acquired Busuu in 2021.

Founding story

Verbling was founded in 2011 by Jake Jolis, Mikael Bernstein and Gustav Rydstedt, who met while attending Stanford University. The Swedish co-founders launched the service on July 8, 2011, initially as Verbling Friends, a video-chat product that paired users interested in learning each other's languages, and the company was financed by Y Combinator in its Summer 2011 batch.

Business model

Verbling operates a two-sided marketplace: independent teachers list their availability and hourly rates, and learners book and pay for individual video lessons on the platform. A separate enterprise track sells organization-wide plans covering 1-on-1 lessons for employees, with administration, billing and reporting handled centrally.

Revenue comes from paid one-on-one lessons booked through the marketplace, with per-hour teacher rates (site-displayed starting prices in Mexican pesos ranged from about MX$118 per hour for French to about MX$305 per hour for Japanese and Korean), and from paid enterprise plans purchased by companies for their teams. Trial lessons are offered free of charge.

Traction

Company materials cite over 2,000 verified tutors (and elsewhere over 10,000 qualified tutors), coverage of more than 70 languages, and over a million students using the platform. At the time of the 2020 acquisition, the platform was described as having over 10,000 pre-vetted live teachers offering lessons in nearly 60 languages. In 2017 the platform had 2,000 teachers across 43 languages.

Latest developments

Following the January 2020 acquisition, Busuu said it would launch Busuu Live built on Verbling's platform for its consumer users and 200-plus corporate clients, and open a new office in Madrid. Verbling continues to operate as an online service and is listed as a subsidiary owned by Chegg.