This year, Duolingo announced a major strategic shift: from monetization to user growth, with a target of 100 million daily active users by the end of 2028. To get there, it needs to grow about 25% year over year, every quarter. In Q2 2026, daily users grew 23%, to 58.7 million, the first time growth has sped up in two years. Duolingo also disclosed a roughly $10 million bonus that pays out if Q4 growth hits 25% or more. Paid subscribers grew by about 200,000 in the quarter, the fewest since 2

Update (April 2026): On April 9, shareholders of both companies voted overwhelmingly to approve the merger — 99.4%% at Coursera, 99.9%% at Udemy. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026. I also dug into the 300-page merger prospectus and found that Coursera approached Udemy three times over two years before getting a yes, and that Pluralsight’s owner made a competing cash offer. Read the full merger history. TL;DR Coursera is acquiring Udemy in an all-stock deal worth ~$1.8 b

Five years after its $750M Trilogy bootcamps acquisition, the troubled ed-tech company pivots to “microcredentials”