Ukrainian company Preply raises $35M. Among investors are the founders of Booking and Unity

Preply, a Ukrainian company that develops a global language learning marketplace, has raised a $35 million Series B funding.

Who invested in Preply?

Owl Ventures and Full In Partners co-led the round with participation from previous investors Point Nine Capital, Hoxton Ventures, EduCapital, All Iron, Diligent Capital, and Evli Growth Partners.

Also, angel investors including Niklas Ostberg, co-founder & CEO of Delivery Hero; Arthur Kosten, co-founder of Booking.com; David Helgason, co-founder of Unity Technologies; and Przemyslaw Gacek, co-founder of Grupa Pracuj, also participated in the current round.

How the funds will be used?

According to Preply CEO Kirill Bigai, the funds raised will be used to expand the company’s staff across all locations where it operates. Preply was founded in 2013, and this round collectively exceeds all the investments the company has raised since its inception.

Due to the popularity of online learning during the pandemic, as well as the AI technology used in teaching, the company has increased the number of active students and tutors recently. The number of lessons per student has increased by 16 percent.

Among 68 percent of Ukrainians on the platform, the most popular language is English. Also popular are German, Spanish, French, and Polish. Almost 35 percent of the total number of hours of Ukrainian language study on the platform is in the United States, followed by the United Kingdom and Ukraine.

Now Preply is an online platform that brings together more than 40,000 tutors who teach 50 languages to hundreds of thousands of students from 180 countries. Over 250 people work in two offices based in Kyiv and Barcelona.