Natasha Mascarenhas
The Latest from Natasha Mascarenhas
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
Lambda School lays off 65 employees amid restructuring
Nearly a year after its last layoff, online coding bootcamp Lambda School just announced more cuts amid a broader restructuring. In a blog post, CEO and founder Austen Allred said that the startup, wh
In a room with no smart speaker, Alexa can’t hear you scream
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 Danny and Chris
Banana Capital’s debut fund is for internet-first founders
You might know him for his viral tweets, but Turner Novak wasn’t always a master meme-maker. Instead, Novak grew up with a single mother in the United States. The financial situation of his family l
What the MasterClass effect means for edtech
MasterClass, which sells a subscription to celebrity-taught classes, sits on the cusp of entertainment and education. It offers virtual, yet aspirational learning: an online tennis class with Serena W
Norwest Venture Partners’ Lisa Wu to teach founders how to think like a VC at TC Early Stage
The best venture capitalists take moonshot risks based on due diligence, support portfolio companies through ups and downs and find focus through noise. When you look at the job description of the bes
No one is talking about remote work from space
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 “Bes
The rise of the next Coinbase, thanks to Coinbase
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 Danny wante
Someone minted an NFT of the low-key Photoshop we made to try to get people to vote for Equity in the Webbys
Our venture capital-focused podcast Equity made it to the finals of its category in the Webbys, a digital awards show for digital things. We were pretty stoked about it. Natasha, in fact, was both exc
Tom Brady and Salesforce Ventures pour millions into Class, a Zoom-friendly edtech startup
Class, an edtech startup that integrates exclusively with Zoom to make remote teaching more elegant, has raised $12.25 million in new financing. The round brings Salesforce Ventures, Sound Ventures an
Clearbanc rebrands its way into a unicorn
After five years of providing non-dilutive financing for founders, Clearbanc is tired of being only a bank. So, it’s rebranding, and has just raised a $100 million Series C at a $2 billion valuation
What does it take to create a startup ecosystem?
Say it louder for the people in the back: As tech grows bigger by the minute and venture capital adds dollar signs by the day, a startup hub’s success is not an either/or situation. The next Silicon
Do you need a SPAC therapist?
Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Natasha and Danny and Alex and Grace were all here to chat th
Garry Kasparov launches a community-first chess platform
Four years ago, MasterClass, a platform that sells celebrity-taught classes, invited chess legend Garry Kasparov to teach a class. He said yes, but soon realized that creating a message that could sat