Natasha Mascarenhas
The Latest from Natasha Mascarenhas
Dear Startups: Don’t repaint, reinvent
I feel hungover. No, not in the traditional sense, but in the dizzying way you feel when half of your world is celebrating double vaccinations and no masks, and the other half, across the world, is mo
Edtech stocks are getting hammered but VCs keep writing checks
Similar to how telehealth faced declines as patients returned to in-person care, edtech will face similar drops as schools become a safer option for students and teachers.
Hundreds of SPACs waiting in the woods
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. The fully vaxxed and officially fully immune took over the podcast
Morressier wants academic conferences to feel cutting-edge
While a unicorn named Hopin tends to dominate the virtual conferencing space, a new startup just raised millions of dollars by focusing on what it believes is an untapped niche in the same universe: a
Fiveable makes first acquisition: A virtual study tool built by a 16-year-old
Fiveable, an online learning community for high school students, made its first-ever acquisition earlier this week: Hours, a virtual study platform built by a 16-year-old. The terms of the deal were n
For unicorns, how much does the route to going public really matter?
"I think when money's chasing money, you don't want to be the last guy holding the money. You want to be the chase."
Duolingo swipes Tinder in a Clash Royale
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. For this week’s deep dive, Alex and Danny unpacked Natasha‘
How Duolingo became a $2.4B language unicorn
At the heart of Duolingo is its mission: to scale free education and increase income potential through language learning. However, the same mission that has helped it grow to a business valued at $2.4
If 12% is the new 30%, 4% is the new 12%
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. The whole team was aboard for this recording, with Grace and Chris
Tiger Global is betting that more schools are going to share future student earnings
Income-share agreements, or ISAs, are a way to bring flexibility to the often steep financial costs of higher education. The financial model allows a student to learn at zero upfront cost, and then pa
Expressable launches with millions for scalable speech therapy
Speaking isn’t simple for at least 40 million Americans, so a new Austin-based startup is scaling a solution. Expressable is a digital speech therapy company that connects patients to speech-languag
The morality and efficacy of going public earlier
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. For this week’s deep dive Natasha and Alex and Chris dug into
This startup wants to bring clarity to the complex world of IVF
About 180 million people globally suffer from infertility. In the United States, one in eight families have trouble conceiving. The statistics are only getting worse, as male infertility and miscarria
The Duolingo EC-1
Education may well be the most important activity we conduct as a society — and it may also be the hardest space to build a startup in. Selling to school districts and universities is notoriously di
How a bot-fighting test turned into edtech’s most iconic brand, Duolingo
Luis von Ahn, an entrepreneur who has dedicated his career to scaling free education, has probably annoyed you more than once. In fact, you’ve likely been annoyed by his work dozens and maybe hundre
The product-led growth behind edtech’s most downloaded app
Duolingo CEO and co-founder Luis von Ahn was tired of the gray and dreary design aesthetic edtech companies used to emulate universities. Instead, he and the company’s early team sought inspiration
How Duolingo became fluent in monetization
As its meandering route to monetization will demonstrate, Duolingo isn’t mission-oriented, it’s mission-obsessed. Co-founders Luis von Ahn and Severin Hacker never wanted to charge consumers for a
Duolingo can’t teach you how to speak a language, but now it wants to try
Duolingo has been wildly successful. It has pulled in 500 million total registered learners, 40 million active users, 1.5 million premium subscribers and $190 million in booked revenues in 2020. It ha
Emotional marketing and an e-mail titan walk into a bar
My mom cuts to the chase when she is describing my beat to others. In her words, I cover companies like Uber before they become companies like Uber. And honestly? I can’t exactly disagree with the d
The second shot is kicking in
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. First and foremost, Equity was nominated for a Webby for “Best Te