Duolingo, a Pittsburgh-based language learning business last valued at $2.4 billion, has officially filed to go public.
The 400-person company, which we explored in great detail in our EC-1, was co-founded by Luis von Ahn, the inventor of CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA, and Severin Hacker. One of the most revealing bits of its story? It’s a route to monetization as a then rare edtech consumer business based outside of Silicon Valley. The company has had a somewhat circuitous journey — full of trial and error — on finding the perfect business model. It eventually landed on subscriptions, despite an original distaste for it …
