Nearly a year after its $1 billion valuation, Quizlet is planning an initial public offer. People familiar with the matter say that Quizlet is well on its way to going public. As we approach an IPO, Quizlet has filed a job application to hire for high-ranking roles in finance and operations.
TechCrunch received an email from the San Francisco-based startup. They declined to comment. Quizlet did not provide any details about the company's revenue or whether it is profitable. The still-private startup claimed that it had a 100% increase in revenue last year. Quizlet claims that it now has 60 million monthly learners. This is 10 million more than its 2018 totals.
Quizlet is a business built on simple products that are easy to share and use. The free flashcard maker allows students to create study guides for topics that will help them prepare for exams. These insights are the basis for Quizlet Plus, a subscription product from startups that charges $47.88 per year for more features and tutoring.
According to CEO Matthew Glotzbach, Quizlets tutoring arm (also known as Quizlet learn) is the most popular offering of the company. Quizlet Learn continuously assesses students as they go through the program to determine where they're making mistakes and where their progress is.
He said that while it cannot replace or even come close to replacing humans, it can offer guidance, point you in the right direction, and help you allocate your time and resources in the best places. Even setting goals is a crucial step in learning.
Quizlet recently announced explanations, a feature which provides a step-by–step solution guide for problem sets derived from popular textbooks. It stated that the feature was written by experts and is intended to help students better understand why and how they think about study questions. Students can then practice and apply what they have learned on their own. It also claimed the Q from its predecessor, which was less fortunate, in a complete rebrand.
The slow but steady march of Quizlets towards the public markets has not been easy. Andrew Sutherland, a 15 year old, founded the startup in 2005. It was completely bootstrapped up to 2015. Glotzbach, a former executive at YouTube, joined the company in 2016. It is unusual for startups to not have a chief financial officer, which is a rare occurrence when they go public.
Glotzbach has raised the majority of Quizlet's $62 million venture capital. General Atlantic, Owl Ventures Union Square Ventures Costanoa Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, and Altos Ventures are now the investors.
As other edtech companies demonstrate the market's acceptance of the sector, Quizlets is pursuing the public markets. Duolingo is an example of another consumer-focused education company. However, it focuses on a single vertical, rather than Quizlets preference to keep it broad. Duolingo was listed in July and currently trades above its open price of $169.75 per shares.
