The Pittsburgh-based startup, Duolingo whose free, gamified approach to language learning has made it one of the popular education apps in the world, is jumping into language testing.
Recently the US company closed up 36% in its market debut on the Nasdaq, going public under the ticket symbol “DUOL.” Shares closed at $139.01, giving the company a market capitalization of nearly $5 billion.
The company priced 3.7 million shares at $102 apiece, above its initial $85 to $95 target range. It raised $521 million at an implied $3.7 billion valuation, up from last year’s private market valuation of about $2.4 billion, according to PitchBook data.
In its IPO prospectus, the Pittsburgh-based company disclosed annualized revenue growth of 129% last year to $161.7 million. The company brought in $55.4 million in revenue for the quarter ended March 31 — a 97% jump from last year — while net losses widened more than six-fold to $13.5 million, according to the filing.
Offering courses in more than 40 languages to approximately 40 million+ monthly active users, Duolingo has over 500 million downloads. Further, its flagship app has organically become the world’s most favourite way to learn languages and the top-grossing app in the Education section on both Google and Apple App Store.
