Eevi raises pre-seed from Rockstart to build a voice-first AI language tutor

Eevi (Amsterdam) has raised a pre-seed round of undisclosed size led by Rockstart. Founded in 2025 by Filemon Schöffer (CEO) and Jago Gazendam (CTO), the company is building a voice-first AI language tutor that, as its name suggests, gets learners into spoken conversation from their very first session.

The founding team carries notable credentials. Schöffer previously co-founded Hubs.com, a manufacturing-on-demand platform acquired by Protolabs for up to $330 million; he subsequently served as Chief Commercial Officer at OpenUp, the mental health platform backed by Balderton Capital. Gazendam joins as CTO. The combination of consumer product experience and enterprise commercial execution is unusual at the pre-seed stage.

The speaking problem in language learning

Duolingo has more than 100 million monthly active users and a well-documented engagement problem: learners complete streaks for months and arrive at a real-world conversation unable to produce a sentence. The app optimised for daily retention, not for fluency — a trade-off that is commercially rational but pedagogically limiting.

Eevi's premise is that the barrier to speaking is not knowledge but practice opportunity. Most language learners have enough vocabulary to attempt a basic conversation; what they lack is a low-stakes environment to attempt it repeatedly, without the social anxiety of making errors in front of a native speaker, and without waiting for a scheduled lesson. An AI tutor available at any hour, patient by design, and calibrated to the learner's current level removes each of those barriers in sequence.

Max ter Horst, Managing Partner at Rockstart: "Eevi is building a new kind of language learning experience centred around conversation, confidence, and accessibility. We're thrilled to back this exceptional team."

Rockstart's thesis

Rockstart is an Amsterdam-based accelerator and early-stage investor with a portfolio spanning digital health, energy, and emerging markets. Its investment in Eevi reflects a consistent thesis: back teams building accessible, high-frequency consumer products in sectors where dominant incumbents have optimised for engagement rather than outcome.

The round amount is undisclosed. The company has announced a public product launch and scaling push over the next 12 months as the primary use of funds.

The 18-month question is whether voice-first AI tutoring produces fluency outcomes that differentiate it measurably from existing apps — and whether those outcomes translate into the retention and referral dynamics that make consumer edtech commercially sustainable.