Duolingo Reaches $6.5 Billion Valuation On Day of IPO (reuters.com) 20
On Wednesday, language learning app Duolingo reached a valuation of $6.5 billion after its shares surged nearly 40% in the company's Nasdaq debut. Reuters reports: Duolingo's stock opened at $141.4 per share, blowing past the initial public offering price (IPO) of $102 per share, which crossed the top end of its target range. The stock later pared some gains to trade at $130.92 in the afternoon. The company's flotation comes at a time of increased investor interest in the edtech space, after pandemic restrictions sent students and teachers from the classroom to the web. "Being a public company will allow us to operate at a higher level, and get going from the minor leagues to the major leagues," said Luis von Ahn, co-founder and chief executive officer of Duolingo.
Following the IPO, the company will focus on improving its flagship app and getting more active users to switch to paying subscribers, von Ahn said. Duolingo offers courses in 40 languages to about 40 million monthly active users. The company also plans to expand more in Asia, its fastest growing region. Currently, Duolingo's largest market is the United States, home to 20% of its users and bringing in 45% of the company's revenue, von Ahn said.
Following the IPO, the company will focus on improving its flagship app and getting more active users to switch to paying subscribers, von Ahn said. Duolingo offers courses in 40 languages to about 40 million monthly active users. The company also plans to expand more in Asia, its fastest growing region. Currently, Duolingo's largest market is the United States, home to 20% of its users and bringing in 45% of the company's revenue, von Ahn said.
So (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3)
It's been a free online language course, with optional subscriptions if you want to give a little back.
With this IPO, I suspect the optional subscription will become more incentivized.
FD: I'm a subscriber learning another language instead of wasting all the time I spend surfing. TBH, I always imagined a plucky little team putting the code together in their spare time and barely covering expenses, though... not an outfit that would have a six billion IPO.
Re: (Score:2)
TBH, I always imagined a plucky little team putting the code together in their spare time
Same here. I used Duolingo to brush up on my Spanish vocabulary a few months ago. I assumed it was a couple of guys working out of their mom's basement in their spare time.
The site has a very amateur feel to it. The UX looks like it was slapped together in a weekend by a high school student.
There is no way I would use it if it wasn't free.
$6 BILLION??? I am flabbergasted.
not a mere vocabulary, not a simple app (Score:1)
If you use it as a vocabulary, then there are tons of more flashy ones. (That took a few man-days to build, BTW.)
But the vocabulary is a tiny fraction of Duolingo's functionality - it's a learning platform.
What matters most is the learning logic to be sound and accompanied with relevant testing.
BTW, testing might be the most important line of business for Duolingo. They revolutionized the market, making all those Cambridges and TOEFLs obsolete.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, they've been stepping up the pressure on that front for years. I don't expect them to lean back. I've pretty much stopped using the app on the phone now - just use the website with ad-blockers. And I still get a sobbing owl all the time.
$6.5bn USD... (Score:3)
... can someone translate that for the rest of us?
Re: (Score:2)
... can someone translate that for the rest of us?
6.5 billion cheeseburgers. You're welcome.
Re: (Score:1)
... can someone translate that for the rest of us?
Approximately 1,645,569,620 Cheesy Gordita Crunches.
Re: (Score:2)
-Does that help?
Re: (Score:2)
... can someone translate that for the rest of us?
Six and one half unicorns.
Curious customer base (Score:2)
I would have thought the largest market would be Europe where close proximity of countries keeps people learning many languages almost by necessity.
Americans I guess would largely have a singular focus on Spanish, is that correct? Can someone chime in if there's some other core foreign language widely come across in the States?
Re: (Score:3)
I would have thought the largest market would be Europe where close proximity of countries keeps people learning many languages almost by necessity.
Americans I guess would largely have a singular focus on Spanish, is that correct? Can someone chime in if there's some other core foreign language widely come across in the States?
No. Most EU countries have pretty good modern foreign language (MFL) programmes in the secondary education systems. Countries that aren't so great at MFL, e.g. Spain, Italy & Greece, have large extra-curricula language teaching sectors to make up the difference. Some schools have content & language integrated learning (CLIL, sometimes called 'immersion' or 'sheltered instruction' in north America) whereby a selection of subjects are taught in a foreign language. Many jobs require proficiency in one
Re: (Score:2)
No. Most EU countries have pretty good modern foreign language (MFL) programmes in the secondary education systems.
Absolutely we do. That doesn't mean we learn everything. My wife's school teaches 7 languages as part of the standard curriculum. That leaves people graduating knowing how to speak 30% of the languages used within 2000km of them, to say nothing of the heavy immigrant population.
There's nothing redundant about offering languages for you to learn which you are *not* taught.
10+ yrs for B1 (Score:1)
So,
"Most EU countries have pretty good modern foreign language (MFL) programmes in the secondary education systems."
And the result is that
"university students can't graduate until they've achieved a recognised B1 CEFR certificate in English".
To sum it up: students spend 10+ years learning English - to reach the B1 level, right?
Clearly, they need to learn better - a huge opportunity for Duolingo...
Re: (Score:2)
Probably more like 15 years, but you're not just learning English, but the whole of the rest of your infant, junior, and senior school curricula, then the college curricula too.
When I was in school, we didn't start learning foreign languages until our natural language-learning mindsets had almost closed down (age 12), but TTBOMK all European countries (not including Britain, obviously) start their language-teaching at ag
Re: (Score:2)
Not really. Duolingo's version of grammar-translation, unsurprisingly, doesn't seem to be very effective. You can read an evaluation by a world renowned expert on second & foreign language learning, Stephen Krashen, here: http://sdkrashen.com/content/a... [sdkrashen.com] In contrast, to get an idea of what an effective second or foreign language curriculum would need, see: https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/lals/re... [wgtn.ac.nz] Paul Nation is the guy who writes some of the most widely used textbooks on curriculum design & development fo
Re: Curious customer base (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely. My wife's school teaches 7 languages. I also speak German Dutch and English. Working through Spanish in Duolingo now myself. If I ever master Spanish it will mean I only have *20 more* languages to go to cover the rest of the EU.
We learn very little at school compared to what is spoken only a couple of hours drive away.
Rosetta Stone (Score:3)
I used to occasionally look at Rosetta Stone and wonder if it really was possible to learn a language through software. But I wasn't willing to gamble $100 to find out.
As a daily DuoLingo user for the last five years, I can testify that they've done a good job of continuously improving the software. They didn't stop at teaching sentences. Once you get the basics down, they move on to short stories, with comprehension questions sprinkled throughout. I've gotten to the point that I can actually understand random people around me who are speaking Spanish, though I'm certainly not yet a confident speaker.
DuoLingo isn't perfect, but they are doing a lot of things right. I'm learning far more than I would have in a classroom.