# Sameer Shariff

> Sameer Shariff is the co-founder and CEO of Cambly, a San Francisco-based edtech platform that connects English learners worldwide with native-speaking tutors via on-demand video chat. A Princeton and Stanford-educated engineer who spent five years at Google, Shariff co-founded Cambly in 2012 after a trip to Argentina revealed how dramatically conversation practice accelerates language fluency. After a failed Series A attempt, he drove Cambly to cash-flow positivity without touching raised capital - then raised $60M from Benchmark, Bessemer, and others once the company no longer needed it. Cambly has ranked #1 in app stores across 150 countries and reaches an addressable market of 1.5 billion people seeking English fluency.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and CEO at Cambly Inc.
- **Organizations:** Cambly Inc., Google, Y Combinator, blip.me
- **From:** Canada
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Engineering, Princeton University, Master of Science in Computer Science, Stanford University
- **Known for:** Co-founded Cambly, now serving 1.5 billion-person addressable market for English learning, Raised $60M Series B from Benchmark, Bessemer Venture Partners, Monashees, and YC; total $122M raised, Built a cash-flow positive business while holding raised capital in reserve for 5+ years

## Career timeline

- **2006** — Joined Google as a Software Engineer on the Search Quality team
- **2006-2011** — Spent ~5 years at Google, becoming Tech Lead of Search Experiments team
- **2011-2012** — Worked at blip.me startup in San Francisco, met co-founder Kevin Law
- **2012** — Co-founded Cambly with Kevin Law after travel experiences in Argentina sparked the idea
- **2012-2014** — Early days: Shariff and Law served as tutors themselves, bootstrapped the product
- **2015** — Cambly joined Y Combinator accelerator; raised seed round post-YC
- **2017** — Failed to raise Series A; pivoted to achieving cash flow positivity within 4 months
- **2017-2018** — Achieved cash flow positive status; attracted renewed investor interest
- **2022** — Raised $60M Series B (June 2022); total funding reached $122M
- **2022-present** — Scaling Cambly globally; platform ranked #1 in app stores across 150 countries

## Achievements

- Co-founded Cambly, now serving 1.5 billion-person addressable market for English learning
- Raised $60M Series B from Benchmark, Bessemer Venture Partners, Monashees, and YC; total $122M raised
- Built a cash-flow positive business while holding raised capital in reserve for 5+ years
- Cambly ranked #1 in app stores across 150 countries
- Grew Cambly to approximately 3,100 employees with annual revenue of ~$128.9M
- Created localization strategy so effective that customers in each market believe Cambly is a local product
- Led Cambly from bootstrapped startup to Series B edtech company without venture dependency
- Named to investor lists by top-tier VCs including Benchmark partner Sarah Tavel and Bessemer's Jeremy Levine

## Latest updates

- **2023-02** — Appeared at TechCrunch Live with Benchmark's Sarah Tavel discussing how failed Series A led to profitability
- **2022-06** — Raised $60M Series B, completing total funding of $122M
- **2022-09** — Featured on Everything Marketplaces Group Chat podcast (episode 110)
- **2022** — Featured on 20VC episode 914: 'Why I Raised $60M and Didn't Touch a Dollar'

## Links

- Website: https://cambly.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sameer-shariff-37b83280
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/SameerAShariff

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/sameer-shariff
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-11