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Co-founders of Preply | Image credit: Preply

Preply, a Ukrainian-founded online language learning marketplace that connects tutors to learners, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $50M (approximately €49.87M) in a Series C round of funding. 

The company says it has now raised over $100M (approximately €99.75M) in funding to date.

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The round was led by Silicon Valley-based Owl Ventures, the largest edtech investor in the world. Existing investors Diligent Capital, Hoxton Ventures, Educapital, Evli Growth Partners, Przemyslaw Gacek, co-founder of Grupa Pracuj, as well as new investors Swisscom Ventures and Orbit Capital also participated in this round.

Showcasing what good language learning looks like

Founded in 2012 by Dmytro Voloshyn, Kirill Bigai and Serge Lukianov, Preply is an online learning platform that connects more than 40,000 tutors teaching 50 languages to learners in 180 countries worldwide.

The company uses a machine-learning algorithm to efficiently pair tutors with learners anywhere in the world, making smarter connections, and ‘cracking the code of effective language learning’.

For example, if you’re in London and you want to learn any new or foreign language, you can easily find a language expert at a time and price point that’s convenient for you. 

The company says that most of the learners skip live teaching as they prefer taking classes before or after work, meaning that there would only be a handful of slots or tutors available at that odd/particular time. This is what the edtech startup is working towards solving – the “rush hour challenge”.

CEO and co-founder Kirill Bigai says, “It’s a devastatingly sad day in Ukraine and our thoughts are wholeheartedly with everybody who is affected. From a Preply perspective, two-thirds of our employees are stationed in Barcelona or elsewhere around the world but for our staff based in Ukraine, we have activated our full support where necessary. This includes assistance with moving them to different locations. Their safety is obviously our priority. As a US-registered company, there is no critical impact on our business operations. Our activity is global and all major financial flows and servers are outside of Ukraine.”

The company has over 400 employees of 58 different nationalities. Preply says it is a US company with employees based in 30 countries across Europe, the US, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Advantage for tutors?

The average price of a lesson on Preply is $15 (approx €14.96) to $20 (approx €19.95) per hour. For tutors, Preply has provided a flexible and secure way to generate income while no longer being limited by locale. With no need to host students at home or waste time travelling, tutors can operate at maximum efficiency from anywhere in the world.

Also, there’s an advantage to the tutors as through Preply, they are always paid straight after the lesson, meaning they never have to waste time chasing payment or risk not being paid at all.

Capital utilisation and recent growth

Speaking about how the funds will be utilised, co-founder Kirill Bigai says, “We have become the world’s leading brand in live language classes and the platform of choice for so many tutors who have decided to teach online. With the additional funding, we plan to continue growing our footprint in the US and Europe by doubling down on AI-based matching and delivering on our promise to connect the world’s largest live language learning community.”

Preply claims that its B2B language learning business has tripled in size over the past year, and boasts Bytedance (Tiktok), Mercedes, and McKinsey among its clients.

The number of people using the Preply app has increased 4X in the past two years, and in several regions, overall users have nearly doubled YoY. Preply claims that the number of students being taught on the platform now exceeds the number of students taught in Ivy League colleges as the platform aims to dominate the expanding online language learning market, which is expected to reach $47B by 2025.

Supporting Ukraine 

Even though Preply’s headquarters are in the US and Europe, its founders hail from Kyiv. The company’s international staff has started a number of significant measures to help Ukraine during the past several months. 

This includes a “Letters to Ukraine” campaign that will translate more than 8000 messages of solidarity from across the world into Ukrainian, and a free language aid programme for 1,000 Ukrainians who are travelling abroad and finding it difficult to learn a new language.

Growth in the UK

According to a statement by Preply, the UK is its biggest market in Europe and the country of birth of an important share of English language tutors, which is the most studied subject on Preply. 23 per cent of UK Preply learners are studying English, followed by Spanish (18 per cent), French (10 per cent), Arabic and Italian.

English is among the top languages studied in the UK due to relocators, expats, and foreign students living in-country. The top three reasons British learners are using the platform are to improve their conversation skills (41 per cent), for professional reasons (19 per cent), and for their children (11 per cent).

Within Preply’s global community of tutors, the UK is the second most represented country of birth. Although many tutors were raised in the UK, 46 per cent of them now make a profession teaching on Preply from abroad, with South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Italy, and France being the most common locations. On Preply, students from 160 nations are presently learning with a British teacher.

One English language tutor from the UK taught 602 different students on Preply in 2021.