Product for Learning: AI Tutoring with Toby Mather, Product Director at Novakid & founder Lingumi
Our first Product For Learning of 2026 welcomes Toby Mather Product Director at Novakid & founder of Lingumi to inspire an intimate gathering of learning change makers.
Toby founded the kids English language learning app Lingumi which was acquired by Novakid, Europe biggest online provider of English-as-a-Foreign-Language tutoring at the end of 2024.
He's now leading Novakid's AI transformation, which he describes as a bit like "living in a Harvard case study".
He will be giving his take on questions including:
Will AI tutoring disrupt live tutoring companies?
How do you even build an AI Tutor?
What is good retention for an AI learning product?
How do live tutoring companies adapt to the risk of disruption?
If there's time, he'll also reflect on his journey as an EdTech founder and his adventures in China.
As well as the chance to quiz Toby, there will be the opportunity to get to know others building new learning products in breakout discussions.
Our hosts are Brighteye, the most active Edtech-focused venture capital fund in Europe who invest in Seed and Series A stage companies. Their offices are in Nottinghill.
The evening will be compared by Matt Walton, coach and fractional EdTech product leader.
Agenda
6pm Welcome, networking, drinks, pizza
7pm Toby's talk, plus Q&A
7.30pm Breakout groups inspired by the talk
8pm Playback and informal networking
9pm Hometime
Sign up to the Product For Learning newsletter and find out more about Lingumi in the recent case study.
About Toby Mather
Toby is Product Director (CPO) at Novakid, Europe's largest English teaching platform, >$90mn revenue, growing fast, and profitable! He runs the product, data and research teams of c.50 folks working on AI Tutors, gamified learning, live teaching platforms, data pipelines and more!
Previously he was co-founder & CEO of Lingumi, the biggest European edtech platform in Asia. We taught English to >2 million kids across the region, including in mainland China where he set up and ran a local subsidiary. We were acquired by Novakid in 2024.