Duolingo

Duolingo is a freemium language-learning app with roughly 500 million total app downloads and a learner base that grew 30% in the last year. The product includes gamified lessons, advertising, in-app premium features and a separate Duolingo English Test that has seen a 15-fold increase in takers. The company says bookings are on track to increase 100% and has recorded a 100% revenue growth rate for the last three years; it has ranked since 2019 as the highest-grossing education app according to Sensor Tower. Duolingo has expanded product offerings, including an app for children launched earlier this year, indicating efforts at revenue and audience diversification. Its user base is geographically broadening: the U.S. is the largest market at about 20% and Asia represents about 15% of users. The company is based in Pittsburgh and is led by co-founder and CEO Luis von Ahn. Duolingo operates a popular online language-learning platform and offers products including Duolingo Plus and the Duolingo English Test. The company recently launched a new app to help children read and write. It passed one million paying subscribers for Duolingo Plus and reports an annual bookings run rate of $140 million. Duolingo says it is cash-flow positive and has hired its first CFO and general counsel. The company is focused on global expansion, with particular emphasis on scaling in Asia. Duolingo was last valued at $1.5 billion and said the recent raise increased its valuation, though it declined to disclose the new figure. Duolingo operates a free language-learning platform with a paid subscription, Duolingo Plus, which removes ads and adds features. The company reports 30 million monthly active learners and runs the most downloaded education app worldwide. Duolingo has grown revenue through Duolingo Plus and is the top-grossing education app globally. Recent product expansions include new courses for Chinese, Korean, Hindi, Arabic, Navajo and Hawaiian, top-ranked podcasts for Spanish and French learners, and Duolingo Events for in-person practice. The company says it will use the new funding to invest in R&D and accelerate team growth. Duolingo has expanded its headcount from 95 employees in July 2017 to 200 and opened offices in New York, Seattle, and Beijing. Duolingo offers a free language-learning platform with lessons, a chatbot for practice, and an English certification test that it charges for. The company recently passed 200 million users, including about 25 million monthly active users. Duolingo has shifted toward monetization with in-app ads, an option to pay to remove ads (available on Android, with iOS support coming), and its paid English certification. It plans to expand its product portfolio with offerings for intermediate learners (first product called Duolingo Stories) and to launch Korean and Chinese courses before the end of the year or in early 2018. The company is also investing in artificial intelligence to improve features like its chatbot. Last year the company reportedly spent about $42,000 per day on servers, salaries, and related expenses. Duolingo is a free, mobile-first language-learning service co‑founded by Luis von Ahn that uses adaptive, gamified lessons. The platform claims over 100 million users worldwide and reports more U.S. learners than the entire public school system; over 100,000 teachers have registered for its schools platform. The company raised a $45 million Series D that values it at roughly $470 million and brings total funding to date to $83.3 million. Duolingo says it will use the new funding to make the platform more adaptive, personalized and effective, and to expand its presence in schools globally. On monetization, the company has tabled broader translations ambitions and is using a Test Center certification program (tests cost $20) as a revenue source while exploring other plans to monetize.