New investment Lexsee are cracking the dyslexia code
The challenges and fear around reading, for dyslexic people, can be crippling. Dyslexia can be successfully overcome, but many can’t afford expensive private tutors, and struggle to get help in resource-strapped US school systems. Lexsee are out to democratise reading for dyslexic people.
Young people with dyslexia in busy classrooms, are often perceived by peers and teachers, and many times also themselves, as less intelligent due to their reading deficits. But dyslexia is a learning challenge that has nothing to do with intelligence.
When we read a word, or a collection of words, our brain visually analyses the text and relates this visual input to how they would sound. And it is not until after this that meanings and associations are formed from those sounds, and it is that process that is extremely challenging to dyslexic people.
The result of their difficulty is psychological stress and far more frequently dropping out of the education system, eventually choosing careers that avoid reading and writing, which in the end can lead to lesser earning opportunities. Tutoring kids with the right strategies and applying example-based repetition can successfully address this gap. But in many places, tutoring and help is difficult or expensive to come by.
Dyslexia affects 1 in 5 people around the world, so it’s an enormous number of people who need assistance, but often don’t receive adequate help, if any. This will give people the best opportunity to finally be comfortable with reading, pronunciation, and writing, and thus freeing up their full potential – Mads Løntoft.
The founders of Lexsee, Benjamin Keyser, Jonas Høyer and Keith Saft, have developed a solution to the lack of access to help. They have created an app that can make any web content more accessible for the dyslexic learner, delivering a learn-by-doing experience for homework, classwork or anything involving written material. AI-powered features include example-driven micro-learning moments, speech to text, text to speech, social learning, realtime pronunciation analysis and feedback, as well as comprehension boosters like contextual definitions and summaries. All this provides a richer, multi-input reading environment, where dyslexics can keep up with classwork, build self-esteem, and open up opportunities for the future.
Lexsee are focusing on the US market at their launch, and working with a few schools, teachers, and students to test and refine the product. It should encourage the teachers to help their dyslexic students without having to hire external tutors, and provide parents and students a much needed ‘always available’ resource.
With the investment, Lexsee will use the runway to build a web app, and to release a paid product around Q4 this year.
The Accelerace program and support have been key to our start and launch. The knowledge transfer, networking, and mentoring continue to be invaluable for our growth. On a personal level, we found everyone to be helpful, supportive and genuinely invested in seeing Lexsee succeed – Benjamin Keyser, Co-Founder at Lexsee.
