Duolingo

Duolingo is the world’s most popular way to learn a language. Our mission is to develop the best education in the world and make it universally available. Founded in 2011 by Luis von Ahn and Severin Hacker, Duolingo is the most downloaded education app in the history of the App Store and in 2019 became the top-grossing education app worldwide. The app has been awarded Apple's iPhone App of the Year and Android's Best of the Best. Learning a new language used to be expensive; we believe it should be free. Over 1.2 billion people are learning a second language and most of them are learning English to improve their lives. Learning a new language is hard; we believe it can be fun. We use bite-sized lessons that feel like playing a game to keep our learners motivated. With over 500 million learners we have unprecedented data insights on how people learn. Our teams of language learning scientists, machine learning engineers, and AI experts use this data to constantly improve our effectiveness. We’re building a future in which the highest-quality education is accessible to all. Duolingo has raised US $138 million from investors including Union Square Ventures, Capital G (formerly Google Capital), NewView Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Drive Capital, Ashton Kutcher and Tim Ferriss. Duolingo has been named to: BuiltIn's Best Places to Work (2023), Fast Company Best Workplaces for Innovators (2022), Fast Company 10 Most Innovative Education Company (2022), Best Machine Learning Startups for by Glassdoor (2020), Forbes' "Next Billion Dollar Startups" (2019), CNBC's Disruptor 50 (2018, 2019), Fortune's "Change the World" list (2019), TIME Magazine's Genius Companies (2018), Fast Company's "Most Innovative Companies" (2017, 2018, 2020), Inc.'s "Best Places to Work" (2018), Entrepreneur's "Top Company Cultures" (2018).
Founding Year
2011
Headquarters
Pittsburgh
,
United States
Sector(s)
Education
Funding State
Pre-Seed
Seed
Series A
Series B+
Exited
Total Funding Amount
$643.30M
Funds that Investested

Union Square Ventures

Union Square Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage, growth-capital, late stage, and startup financing.
Pre-Seed
Seed
Series A
Series B+
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Drive Capital

Partners with entrepreneurs in building long-term, sustainable businesses.
Pre-Seed
Seed
Series A
Series B+
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Kleiner Perkins

Kleiner Perkins was founded in the 1970s by Tom Perkins and Eugene Kleiner. The firm is focused on early-stage digital consumer and enterprise, green tech and life sciences companies.
Pre-Seed
Seed
Series A
Series B+
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New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

Global venture capital firm investing in technology and healthcare
Pre-Seed
Seed
Series A
Series B+
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Investors that Investested

Andrew Schoen

Partner, New Enterprise Associates (NEA)
Andrew Schoen is a partner of NEA since 2014, and focused on enterprise technology investments. In 2018, Andrew was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Venture Capital.
Pre-Seed
Seed
Series A
Series B+
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Tony Florence

General Partner, New Enterprise Associates (NEA)
Tony is a General Partner and co-leads NEA's Venture Growth Equity and Consumer Internet investment practices. Tony focuses on investments in the software and Internet sectors with emphasis on SaaS and marketplace ecommerce companies. Tony has led investments inCare.com (NYSE: CRCM), Cvent (NYSE: CVT), Moda Operandi, Edmodo, EverFi, Casper, Raise.com, Jet.com, Goop.com and Wallapop. He led the firm's investment in Quidsi (Diapers.com), which was acquired by Amazon in 2011. Tony received an MBA and an A.B. in Economics from Dartmouth College.
Pre-Seed
Seed
Series A
Series B+
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