'If you live in the United States you may not know about this, but worldwide billions of dollars are spent by people having to take tests to prove that they know English,' von Ahn said. In addition to its core platform, the company created the Duolingo English Test, a language certification option accepted by more than 2,000 universities and institutions worldwide. 'We make the majority of our revenue through subscriptions.' 'We're the most popular way to learn languages in the world,' co-founder and CEO Luis von Ahn said on CNBC's ' TechCheck' Wednesday morning before shares started trading. Von Ahn was one of the developers behind the invention of CAPTCHA and ReCAPTCHA, which are used to distinguish humans from machines.

What many don't know is that the world's most popular education app began as a computer science project for co-founders Severin Hacker and Luis von Ahn, teaching people foreign languages while trying to simultaneously translate the entire internet. 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.ĭuolingo offers 95 courses across 40 distinct languages - from the world's most spoken, such as Spanish, French and Italian, to endangered languages like Hawaiian, Navajo and Scottish Gaelic. In its IPO prospectus, the Pittsburgh-based company disclosed annualized revenue growth of 129% last year to $161.7 million. Personal Loans for 670 Credit Score or Lower Personal Loans for 580 Credit Score or Lower Best Debt Consolidation Loans for Bad Credit

Cost of duolingo