Fixing work-from-home emails is the latest way to make billions
BNN Bloomberg
Grammarly, a US$13 billion super-unicorn started in 2009, has boomed during the pandemic and made two of its founders worth US$2.4 billion each.
Brad Hoover wants the world to write better English — error-free, no plagiarism and, of course, with proper grammar.
He’s not a teacher or politician. Hoover, 43, is a former venture capitalist who’s now chief executive officer of Grammarly Inc., a San Francisco-based company that uses artificial intelligence to enhance writing.
Started by three Ukrainians in 2009, Grammarly has more than 600 employees and works with more than half a million applications to analyze 14 trillion words a year for its 30 million daily active users across the globe. With the majority of English speakers worldwide located in regions where it’s not the main language, there’s still ample room to expand, Hoover said.
Grammarly is already one of the world’s biggest unicorns after raising US$200 million in November from investors including BlackRock Inc. and Baillie Gifford, valuing the company at US$13 billion. Its previous funding round came in 2019 at a valuation of more than US$2 billion. That was just months before the COVID-19 pandemic displaced tens of millions of office workers and left them typing to colleagues from home.
“We saw our business accelerate with the move to remote work,” Hoover said. “In the past, people were left to their own devices to figure out how to communicate well. We’re now at a very unique point in time to use software to enable people to communicate.”
Grammarly has made billionaires of at least two of its founders, Max Lytvyn and Alex Shevchenko, who are worth at least US$2.4 billion each, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Backers who participated in funding rounds hold a 23 per cent stake, data from PitchBook and Bloomberg show.
