# Anada Lakra

> Anada Lakra is the co-founder and CEO of BoldVoice, an AI-powered accent and speech coaching app for non-native English speakers. Born and raised in Albania, she studied English for a decade before arriving at Yale, where being asked to repeat herself sparked the idea that became BoldVoice. After Yale and an MBA from Harvard Business School, with product stints at Peloton and consulting work along the way, she and co-founder Ilya Usorov built a Y Combinator-backed app that pairs Hollywood dialect coaches with real-time AI feedback. BoldVoice has crossed 5 million downloads, serves professionals in 150+ countries, reached $10M+ in ARR with a team of seven, and raised a $21M Series A in January 2026 led by Matrix.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at BoldVoice
- **Organizations:** BoldVoice, Y Combinator (alum)
- **From:** Albania
- **Nationality:** Albanian-American
- **Education:** Undergraduate degree, Yale University, MBA with Distinction, Harvard Business School
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads BoldVoice, an AI accent and speech coaching app with 5M+ downloads across 150+ countries, Raised a $21M Series A in January 2026 led by Matrix (total funding ~$27M), Scaled BoldVoice to $10M+ ARR with a team of just seven employees

## Career timeline

- **—** — Grew up in Albania; studied English for roughly 10 years before moving to the U.S.
- **—** — Moved to the U.S. to attend Yale University
- **—** — Worked as a consultant at Synpulse Management Consulting
- **—** — Co-founded day100, a SaaS product for data-driven hiring decisions
- **—** — Product Manager at Peloton Interactive
- **—** — Summer Associate in McKinsey's Digital Practice
- **2021** — Completed MBA with Distinction at Harvard Business School
- **2021** — Co-founded BoldVoice with Ilya Usorov; went through Y Combinator and raised a pre-seed round
- **2026** — BoldVoice raised a $21M Series A led by Matrix after crossing $10M ARR and 5M+ downloads

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads BoldVoice, an AI accent and speech coaching app with 5M+ downloads across 150+ countries
- Raised a $21M Series A in January 2026 led by Matrix (total funding ~$27M)
- Scaled BoldVoice to $10M+ ARR with a team of just seven employees
- Named to Forbes 30 Under 30 in Education
- Y Combinator alum
- Recognized among 100 Women in AI
- BoldVoice ranked among top Education apps on the Apple App Store

## Latest updates

- **2026-01** — BoldVoice raised a $21M Series A led by Matrix, with participation from Flybridge, Xfund, Corazon Capital, Alumni Ventures, Umami Capital and Y Combinator, to fund global expansion and proprietary speech models.

## Links

- Website: https://boldvoice.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/anadalakra
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/anadalakra
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKpScxrGLNM

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/anada-lakra
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-04