In 2007 Markus Witte, Thomas Holl, and two friends (later, the four co-founders), who met at a Berlin-based software company, were building an online collaboration platform for musicians. One day one of them expressed interest in learning Spanish. To his surprise he only found CD-ROMs and textbooks. There were almost no online options. They decided to refocus and create their own online language learning solution. And Babbel was born.