Duolingo prices Nasdaq initial public offering at $102 per share

Duolingo, the Pittsburgh-based language learning company, priced its initial public offering on July 27, 2021 at $102.00 per share. The offering covered 5,106,113 shares of Class A common stock, and trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker DUOL was set to begin the following day.

Of the shares on offer, 3,700,000 were sold by the company and 1,406,113 by existing stockholders. At the offer price, the shares sold by Duolingo itself amount to roughly $377 million before fees. Underwriters received a 30-day option to buy up to 765,916 further shares. Goldman Sachs and Allen & Company acted as lead book-running managers, joined by BofA Securities, Barclays, Evercore and William Blair. The offering was expected to close on July 30, 2021.

In its announcement, Duolingo said its mobile platform had about 40 million monthly active users and offered courses in 40 languages. If the underwriters exercise their option in full, the total number of shares sold would rise to 5,872,029. Co-managers on the offering were KeyBanc Capital Markets, JMP Securities, Piper Sandler and Raymond James.