Vocal Image AI: Improve Communication with Voice Technology
- With 4 million app downloads, Estonia-based startup Vocal Image aims to help people improve their voice and interaction skills with AI-powered coaching.
- Lakhoika was born in Belarus,didn't speak english until his relocation to Estonia,and once struggled with speaking anxiety.
- "When I was at school, I was a little bit bullied for unclear diction," Lakhoika said.
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Vocal image: AI-Powered Voice Coaching Startup
With 4 million app downloads, Estonia-based startup Vocal Image aims to help people improve their voice and interaction skills with AI-powered coaching. But out of its 160,000 active users, it may be its CEO, Nick Lakhoika, who best embodies its mission.
Lakhoika was born in Belarus,didn’t speak english until his relocation to Estonia,and once struggled with speaking anxiety. Yet, he went on to “win a lot of pitch competitions” on behalf of the voice coaching startup, which was inspired by his journey, he told TechCrunch.
“When I was at school, I was a little bit bullied for unclear diction,” Lakhoika said. In his early twenties, as a young, insecure founder, he met a vocal coach, maryna ”Rusia” Shukiurava, who taught him that voice and communication could be trained.
To help others, they started a YouTube channel that eventually morphed into Vocal Image, which positions its subscription-based app as an affordable choice to one-on-one coaching you can use at home. “You can make strange movements, strange sounds […] and feel safe,” lakhoika said.
With an interactive library that includes tongue twisters, breathing exercises, and advice on gestures, Vocal Image is also leaning more and more into AI to give automated feedback and personalized tips, thanks in big part to the addition of co-founder and CTO Mikalai Karaliou, Lakhoika said.
These guided journeys mostly revolve around work-related goals such as enhancing professional or leadership skills, and developing public speaking or presentation abilities. But Vocal Image also supports people who simply want to increase their self-confidence, as well as LGBTQ people, whose rights Shukiurava had been supporting in Belarus.
While the trio is from Belarus, they were among the many Belarusian founders who left their home country after protests failed to oust President Alexander Lukashenko and were met with brutal repression. Lakhoika picked Estonia for its buisness environment, which has so far proven favorable for the startup.