Armenia/US-based edtech startup Sololearn has raised $24mn in a Series B funding round.

This was led by Drive Capital, while there was participation from previous investors in Sololearn’s $5.6mn Series A in 2016, including Learn Capital and Prosus Ventures. The startup has raised a total of $30.8mn, to date. 

Columbus-based Drive Capital is a VC firm that started in 2013. It has raised over $1bn to invest in startups solving problems in large markets. Drive is an investor in more than 50 companies outside of Silicon Valley, including Root Insurance, Duolingo, Greenlight, Olive, and Branch.

Founded in Armenia by CEO Yeva Hyusyan in 2014, Sololearn offers instructional content, practice challenges, and community support, all within a gamified experience where users and community members can earn points that reflect their progress and contributions. 

The startup claims that it has seen immense growth only by word of mouth alone. Currently, it has 21 million users with active users up 300% over the past year, and it has doubled revenue over each of the last three quarters. Sololearn is adding as many as 300,000 more users per month. 

The most popular languages in Sololearn’s growing library of 25 curriculum categories are Python, JavaScript, Java, C++, HTML, and SQL. 

Since its launch, Sololearn has expanded globally with offices across the US and Europe. It had 75 employees as of June and expected to double headcount in the next 12 months.

With the proceeds, the edtech startup plans to build out its content to new languages and technical skills, launch an enterprise learning management system to help companies train employees on specific development environments, and expand secondary and post-secondary education partnerships in which Sololearn complements classroom instruction.

“More than 1 billion people will require reskilling over the next decade, and people who don’t reskill will at best fall behind and at worst be out of a job,” says Hyusyan. “Sololearn empowers anyone who wants to improve professionally or personally by putting a coding school in the palm of their hand. We provide robust instructional content, engaging practice assignments, and inspiring community support from students and teachers.”