Duolingo winners raise $13M to start making college education easier to access

As college education grows and the student loan debt crisis continues, three former executives of the language learning app Duolingo are creating a new startup aimed at making college education accessible and affordable.

The company, currently named Outsmart Education (the name has not yet been finalized), is co-founded by Daniel Falabella (CPO), former senior director of learning products at Duolingo ABC; Gina Gotthilf (CMO), former vice president of growth and marketing at Duolingo; and Jorge Mazal (CEO), former chief product officer at Duolingo.

Outsmart announced its $13 million seed funding round on Monday, led by Khosla Ventures, with participation from Karman Ventures, Latitud Ventures, and Lightspeed Ventures, as well as angel investors, including Lenny Ratchitsky (who led product at Airbnb) and 20Growth, among others . The money will be used for hiring and product development.

The idea for Outsmart came from Mazal’s frustration with the current system, he says. When Mazal moved to the US to pursue her undergraduate degree, she did not have the resources to pay for it and had to find a way to finance her education through a combination of jobs, scholarships, and other means. As he went on to complete two master’s programs at Harvard and Wharton, he didn’t realize how much debt he would end up with.

“I was like a quarter of a million in debt,” Mazal told TechCrunch. “I had to take a part-time job where I picked up the trash in my house every morning to make ends meet, and, to me, that symbolized what was broken in a higher place.”

Since the company is currently operating in secret mode, it is not yet able to share its specific plans. Apart from this, this business shows promise given the quality of its supporters.

“A college-level education is a basic, universal human right,” Ethan Choi, partner at Khosla Ventures, told TechCrunch. “I’m actually a first-generation college student myself. Education has completely changed my life and will impact my family for generations…I can only imagine what [Outsmart is] doing it will change the world.”

Outsmart comes at a time when many families are struggling to afford a college degree. For the 2024-2025 school year, average tuition and fees at private colleges rose about 5.5% over last year, while public schools rose more than 2%. In total, Americans owe an estimated $1.6 trillion in student debt.

Mazal told us, “The goal we are trying to achieve is to dramatically increase access to higher education in a way that has never been seen before and that we believe can change the world.”

Many companies aim to help college students find an affordable education, including college tuition comparison platforms, such as Tuition Tracker, and companies that offer affordable online education. There are also matching platforms, such as College Rover and College Simply, that help students decide which college is the best fit for them.

Since Outsmart is keeping the details of its offering under wraps, it’s unclear how it fits into these existing categories. Still, the inventors themselves seem well-equipped to forge a path in space. The three have worked at Duolingo for five years and have held positions at other different companies. Falabella has experience at Dropbox and Lucid Software, while Gottif previously worked at Tumblr. Mazal has worked at Lucid, MyFitnessPal, and Zynga.

Mazal believes that Outsmart will be “better than the top options out there in every aspect, in terms of reach, accessibility, personalization,” he said.