- Demand for language learning is growing across the globe.
- Preply is a tutoring marketplace for language learning.
- It has raised a $35 million Fund in Series B Round.
- Investors in Preply include Point Nine Capital, Hoxton Ventures, EduCapital, All Iron.
Preply is an online educational platform that pairs students with private tutors remotely via online chat. It features a ranking algorithm that uses machine learning for the classification and recommendation of tutors. The company was launched in 2012 by Serge Lukianov, Dmytro Voloshyn, and Kirill Bigai (current CEO). Preply was chosen as one of the most promising startup companies in Ukraine. It received an initial angel investment round of $180,000 from Semyon Dukach, Borya Shakhnovich, Vadim Yasinovsky, Dan Pasko, Torben Majgaard, and Vostok Ventures.
The website, preply.com, was launched in November 2012. Preply initially launched as a marketplace for online SAT and ACT tutoring, later reaching 10,000 hours of studying monthly. Due to the broad global demand for English online tutoring, the startup decided to pivot. In April 2013, Preply re-launched its marketplace as an online language tutoring platform. The company started expanding into markets of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan. It later expanded into the Polish market in 2013. In 2015, Preply received a $120,000 investment from TechStars. In 2016, Preply entered the Brazilian market and announced closing another round ($1,3 million).
Preply Raises $35 Million In Series B Round.
Preply, a tutoring marketplace for language learning, has raised a $35 million Series B co-led by Full In Partners and Owl Ventures, an ed-tech fund that has backed Byju’s and Newsela. The raise comes nearly a year after the company landed a $10 million Series A. Investors in Preply include Point Nine Capital, Hoxton Ventures, EduCapital, All Iron, Diligent Capital, and Evli Growth Partners.
Preply’s recent growth, as well as a global boom in language learning, explains the current investor interest. When it closed its Series A, Preply had 2 million booked lessons and 10,000 vetted tutors. One year later, there have been more than 10 million lessons booked on the platform, and the tutor network has grown to 40,000 people across 190 countries. The startup was eyeing United States expansion in 2020, and today, one-third of its revenue comes from the country, making it the largest market in which the company has customers.
The Growth Of Preply in tutoring Marketplace.
The growth signals that Preply is finding traction despite heavyweight competitors such as Duolingo. It which plans to IPO this year, and Babbel, which crossed $150 million in recognized revenue in 2019. CEO Kirill Bigai says it’s been able to differentiate itself from others because of its technology, which uses artificial intelligence to connect students with tutors.
Preply’s largest difference from competitors is in its philosophy of how learning should be done. Preply believes that learning should be live and with a native speaker, while a company like Duolingo thinks it can be gamified and self-led. The company makes money by revenue-share agreements with its tutors. It takes 20% of each lesson fee, which ranges from $15 to $20 per hour, as well as the entire cost of the first lesson, as a lieu of a lead generation. With the enterprise offering, Preply has the same business model but the hours per employee are capped with the employer Raising the cap.
