Three parents, Reni Cao, Xiao Zhang, and Susan Rosenthal, were concerned about their children’s screen time. They left their careers in the tech industry to create a product that encourages children to engage with the real world while learning a new language. Their decision has proven successful, as the company recently raised $4.8 million in funding.
Their newly launched gadget is called Dex. It resembles a high-tech magnifying glass with a camera lens on one side and a touchscreen on the other. When children use the device to take pictures of objects, its AI uses image recognition to identify the object and then translates the word into a selected language. The device also includes interactive story lessons and games. While other language learning apps for kids exist, Dex argues that it offers a more engaging, hands-on approach that allows children to immerse themselves in a language through physical interaction with their environment.
Reni Cao explained that the goal is to teach authentic language in the real world in an interactive way. Children are not just listening or following instructions; they are thinking, creating, interacting, running around, and being curious about things. They acquire the necessary language associated with the concepts and objects they discover.
Dex is designed for children aged 3 to 8 years old. It currently supports Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. The device also offers support for 34 dialects, including Egyptian Arabic, Taiwanese Mandarin, and Mexican Spanish.
Beyond object recognition, Dex features a library of interactive stories that encourage children to actively participate. As a story unfolds, kids are prompted to respond, such as by greeting characters in the language they are learning. A dedicated app for parents provides a detailed overview of their child’s progress, including the vocabulary words they have learned, the stories they have engaged with, and their consecutive days of use.
Dex is currently developing a feature that allows children to ask an AI chatbot questions and engage in free-form conversations. This feature is already available to some testers, though the company admits it is not yet ready for a wider rollout. The introduction of an AI chatbot for children is an area where parents may exercise caution.
During testing, there were concerns about the possibility of a child learning inappropriate words. Reni Cao assured that rigid safety prompts are included whenever the large language model is used. The company employs an always-on safety agent that evaluates conversations in real-time and filters them with a safe stop word list. This agent will suppress a conversation if any stop words are mentioned, including those related to sexuality, religion, or politics. Parents will soon be able to add to personalized stop word lists. The AI is also trained using vocabulary standards similar to those found in Britannica Kids and other children’s encyclopedias.
In tests, the AI successfully ignored topics related to nudity. However, it did recognize and accurately translate the term “gun,” which is something parents should consider. In response to this finding, Cao stated that while he is not worried from a regulatory standpoint, he acknowledges it presents a concern for some parents. These concerns have pushed the company to soon introduce a setting option to filter out specific words like guns, cigarettes, vape pens, fireworks, marijuana, and beer bottles.
Dex operates with a zero data retention policy. This means there is no risk of sensitive or personal images being stored. A potential downside is that parents are left without a record of the specific content their children capture. The company is also actively working towards obtaining COPPA certification to ensure compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
The company secured its funding from ClayVC, EmbeddingVC, Parable, and UpscaleX. Notable angel investors include Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann, Curated co-founder Eduardo Vivas, former head of safety at OpenAI Lillian Weng, and ex-Coursera executive Richard Wong.
The Dex device is priced at $250. This may feel steep for a product designed for children, but the company positions it as a more affordable alternative to hiring a language tutor, who may charge up to $80 per hour, or attending a language immersion school, which can cost thousands of dollars. Dex reports that hundreds of families have already purchased the device.