As college tuition prices rise and the student loan debt crisis continues, three former executives at language learning app Duolingo are launching a new company aimed at making college education more affordable and accessible. Launching a startup.
The company, tentatively named Outsmart Education (the name has not yet been finalized), is led by co-founder Daniel Falabella (CPO), a former senior director of learning products at Duolingo. Gina Gothilf, CMO, former Vice President of Growth and Marketing at Duolingo. and Jorge Mazal (CEO), former chief product officer of Duolingo.
Outsmart on Monday announced a $13 million seed funding round led by Khosla Ventures with participation from Karman Ventures, Latitud Ventures, Lightspeed Ventures, and angel investors including Lenny Ratchinsky (former product lead at Airbnb) and 20Growth did. others. The proceeds will be used for recruitment, product development, etc.
The idea for Outsmart came from Mazal's own frustration with the current system, he says. When Mr. Mazar moved to the United States to pursue his bachelor's degree, he did not have the means to pay for tuition, so he had to find ways to finance his education through a combination of jobs, scholarships, and other means. It was. When he completed two master's programs at Harvard and Wharton, he had no idea how much debt he would end up incurring.
“I was about $250,000 in debt,” Mazar told TechCrunch. “I had to take a part-time job picking up trash in an apartment complex every morning to make ends meet. For me, that really symbolized the failure of higher education.”
(LR) Gina Gottilf, Daniel Falabella, Jorge Mazal. Image credit: Outsmart Education
The company is currently operating in stealth mode and is unable to reveal specific plans yet. Nevertheless, given the caliber of backers, this venture shows promise.
“College-level education is a fundamental and universal human right,” Ethan Choi, partner at Khosla Ventures, told TechCrunch. “I'm actually a first-generation college student myself. Education will completely change my life and impact my family for generations…I just think… [Outsmart is] Doing so will change the world. ”
Outsmart comes at a time when many families are finding it difficult to pay for a college degree. For the 2024-2025 school year, average tuition and fees at ranked private universities increased by about 5.5% from the previous year, while public schools increased by more than 2%. Overall, Americans owe about $1.6 trillion in student loans.
“The mission we are seeking to accomplish is to dramatically increase access to higher education in an unprecedented way, and we believe that it can change the world,” Mazar said. Ta.
Many companies aim to help college students obtain an affordable education, including platforms that compare university tuition fees, such as Tuition Tracker, and companies that offer cheap online schooling. There are also matching platforms like College Rover and College Simply that help students decide which college is the best fit for them.
Outsmart is keeping the details of its services secret, so it remains unclear how or if it will fit into these existing categories. Either way, the founder himself seems ready to blaze a trail in this space. The trio worked at Duolingo for five years and previously held positions at various other prominent companies. Falabella has experience at Dropbox and Lucid Software, and Gotthilf previously worked at Tumblr. Mazal has worked at Lucid, MyFitnessPal, and Zynga.
Mazal said he believes Outsmart is “better than the higher education options out there in basically every aspect in terms of access, affordability and personalization.”