Duolingo Now Valued at $1.5 Billion
World's most popular language-learning platform raises $30 million in Series F funding
PITTSBURGH, Dec. 4, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Duolingo has reached a $1.5 billion valuation after closing a $30 million Series F funding round from CapitalG, Alphabet's growth equity investment fund and an existing investor in the company. This brings Duolingo's total funding to $138 million, and makes it Pittsburgh's first tech startup to achieve a valuation of more than $1 billion. The new capital will be used for continued investment into the research and development of its products, as well as to accelerate the growth and expansion of the Duolingo team.
"Duolingo has been adding users and revenue at an impressive pace, continuing to solidify their position as the #1 way to learn a language globally," said Laela Sturdy, General Partner at CapitalG. "The team has demonstrated that sticking to their mission of providing free education is not only good for the world, but it's also good for business. We are thrilled to continue to support them in this next stage of growth."
With 30 million monthly active learners, Duolingo is the most downloaded education app in the world and has grown organically through word of mouth. Since its last funding round in July 2017, the company has grown revenue via its paid subscription offering, Duolingo Plus, and is now also the top-grossing education app worldwide. Duolingo Plus removes ads and provides additional features, while all educational content on Duolingo continues to be free.
Recent developments include:
- Product innovation – To offer even more robust learning resources, Duolingo has released top-ranked podcasts to help Spanish and French learners with listening comprehension; launched Duolingo Stories to help with reading comprehension; and introduced Duolingo Events to connect learners all over the world in person to practice conversation.
- New language courses – Duolingo has added new courses for major languages such as Chinese, Korean, Hindi and Arabic, as well as endangered languages such as Navajo and Hawaiian.
- Team growth – The company has grown from 95 employees in July 2017 to 200 today, and has opened offices in New York, Seattle and Beijing.
"We started Duolingo with the mission of making education free and accessible to everybody, and I'm very proud that we've now also built a strong business," said Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of Duolingo. "CapitalG has been a valuable partner to Duolingo over the past few years, and we look forward to using this investment to continue our growth and further solidify our position as the most widely used and top-grossing language-learning app worldwide."
About Duolingo
Duolingo is the most popular language-learning platform and the most downloaded education app worldwide. The company's mission is to make education free and accessible to all. Duolingo offers 91 total courses across over 30 distinct languages, and is available on iOS, Android, and Web at www.duolingo.com. Valued at $1.5 billion, the company has raised more than $138 million in venture capital from investors including CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Union Square Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Drive Capital, Ashton Kutcher, and Tim Ferriss.
About CapitalG
CapitalG, formerly Google Capital, is the late-stage growth venture capital fund financed by Alphabet Inc., and is based in San Francisco, CA. Founded in 2013, it focuses on growth stage technology companies, helping them scale with support from Google's vast expertise and resources. For further information about CapitalG, please visit www.capitalg.com.
SOURCE Duolingo
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