Grammarly

Grammarly is an online grammar checking service. He uses artificial intelligence to help write texts in English. The startup was founded in 2008 by Ukrainian programmers Alexei Shevchenko, Maxim Litvin and Dmitry Leader. The company's offices are open in Kiev, New York, San Francisco and Vancouver (as of October 2019).

History

2021: Raising $200 million, estimated at $13 billion

In mid-November 2021, Grammarly, a popular tool for automatic editing of written texts, raised $200 million in funding with a startup estimate of $13 billion. New investors included Baillie Gifford and BlackRock. The company plans to use the attracted investments to accelerate the introduction of innovative products and increase the size of the team as a whole.

Grammarly, which has Ukrainian roots, plans to use the funding received to continue investments in artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The company will also continue to improve natural language processing and machine learning technologies to provide personalized feedback to its users within the system. Grammarly plans to add new categories in which you can offer improvements or additions, as well as work to become more recognizable.

Grammarly service raised $200 million with an estimate of $13 billion

We believe that this round of financing is an excellent confirmation of the strength of our business and from the very beginning of our activities we received a positive cash flow. This round also confirms the strength of our mission to improve life through improved communication. Now there are so many changes in how work is done when remote global teams try to work together. We see a huge opportunity to help people communicate more effectively in these changing scenarios. This new funding will help us accelerate our efforts in this direction, said Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, head of global products at Grammarly.

The company announced the launch of Grammarly for developers, releasing a software development kit (SDK) for a text editor that allows programmers to embed Grammarly text editing features into any web application. The beta release of this SDK gives developers access to the full power of automatic editing using a pair of lines of code. Grammarly operates in more than 500 thousand applications and websites, including mail clients, enterprise software (software ). According to representatives of the company, since more and more people communicate on an increasing number of online platforms, it is important to properly organize communication to achieve personal and business goals, and this is what the service seeks to help its users.

Grammarly runs a free minimum model where paid levels give users more tools than grammar and spelling checking, including things like word selection, sentence rewriting, adjustment, formality level, and plagiarism detection. The cost of paid levels is $12, $20 and $30 per month.^[1]

2019: Raising $90 million of investments and valuing the company at $1 billion

On October 10, 2019, it became known about the attraction of Grammarly $90 million in investments. According to the results of the financing transaction, the company was valued at more than $1 billion, writes TechCrunch with reference to its CEO Brad Hoover.

The main investor in this round was General Catalyst. The total amount of funds received by Grammarly for all time reached approximately $200 million.

Grammarly - online grammar checking service

The startup intends to use the new investments in order to continue to expand the coverage of its product and make it available wherever written communication in English can take place.

In addition, the company will continue to work on more complex aspects of language and communication, in particular the development of the recently launched tone detector - in order to provide users with practical recommendations for its adaptation.

By October 2019, the startup is working on the creation of an English-language assistant for professional and personal communications.

Grammarly co-founder Dmitry Leader noted that in two years by October 2019, the number of employees of the company more than doubled. As part of the expansion, the startup is building a new office in Kiev.

In a conversation with TechCrunch, Brad Hoover noted that Grammarly is not worried about the increasing competition in the market in which the company operates. There are two reasons for that: the service does not depend on a certain platform and works with any text that is typed, he stressed.^[2]

Notes