Language teaching app Duolingo has acquired Beatstar developer and music gaming startup, NextBeat, in a bid to make its music course “as fun and joyful as the best mobile games in the market.”<\/p>\n
In a press release, the company said the acquisition of NextBeat’s team of 23 \u2014 with expertise in game design, user retention, monetization, sound design, and music licensing \u2014 will “power the next chapter of Duolingo’s gamified learning experiences.”<\/p>\n
It also establishes the “first official presence” of Duolingo in the UK.<\/p>\n
\u201cLearning should be just as engaging as playing a great game, whether you\u2019re practicing a new language or playing a favorite song,\u201d said Bob Meese, chief business officer at Duolingo. \u201cThis is a strategic bet on talent. The NextBeat team brings deep mobile gaming and music industry expertise, which will make our Music course and the entire Duolingo platform more delightful, immersive, and effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom day one, it was clear that Duolingo and NextBeat share the same values: putting learners first, obsessing over great design, and never taking ourselves too seriously,\u201d said Simon Hade, CEO of NextBeat. \u201cJoining forces means we can bring our passion for music and play to a platform that is redefining how people learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
Space Ape Games spun out new studio NextBeat earlier this year<\/a>. It’s thought the studio’s portfolio will include Space Ape IPs Beatstar and Country Star.<\/p>\n Supercell – which already owned 62% of Space Ape<\/a> – increased its investment in Space Ape back in November, acquiring the London-based studio<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Language teaching app Duolingo has acquired Beatstar developer and music gaming startup, NextBeat, in a bid to make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[165,74],"class_list":["post-71625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}