Duolingo raises $45 million in funding

Duolingo, language learning service, raised $45 million in a Series-D investment led by Google Capital.

Free language learning service, Duolingo, announced that it has secured $45 million investment in a round led by Google capital at a valuation of $470 million.

Google Capital along with previous investors Union Square Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers values the Pittsburgh-based maker of a popular language learning app at $470 million.

Luis von Ahn, Duolingo's co-founder and CEO, "Because tutors are scarce and expensive, we are using technology to give everyone access to a personalised education in a scalable way".

The company offers free language learning and crowd-sourced text translation across a range of primarily European languages. It provides courses in 40-plus languages including those in Klingon and Esperanto.

People who speak Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Turkish, Hungarian, Romanian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, or Czech can also learn American English from the app. Last year, it added support for Hindi to offer English language courses to Hindi speakers.

The company was started by Luis von Ahn and Severin Hacker in 2011. Now, the company has more than 100 million users.

Laela Sturdy, partner at Google Capital, said that Duolingo's mobilefirst, adaptive, and gamified platform is changing the way people are learning languages across the globe.

She added that they are blown away by the company's growth and engagement numbers and are happy to partner with them as they shape the future of education.

Duolingo hopes to use the new investment to make its platform even more adaptive, personalized, and effective.