From Ukrainian Tutor Marketplace to Global EdTech Leader: How Preply Continues Building the Future of Personalized Education

• Ukrainian-born tutoring marketplace Preply secured USD 150M Series D funding, reaching a USD 1.2B valuation milestone
• The company expanded globally with 100,000 tutors across 180 countries, combining human tutoring with AI-powered personalized learning tools
• The scale-up illustrates how a Ukrainian-born company can have global tech ecosystem potential
• The new investment will accelerate Preply’s AI product development and continued global growth

This January, Preply, the global language learning marketplace founded by Ukrainian entrepreneurs, secured USD 150M in Series D funding, marking a new milestone in the company’s journey from a startup connecting learners and tutors to a global platform shaping the future of personalized education.

The round was led by WestCap, a strategic operating and investment firm with USD 6M+ in assets under management. Other investors included Preply’s both new and long-standing supporters, such as the EBRD, Educapital (invested in Vocal Image, among others), Hoxton Ventures (invested in Giraffe360, among others), and Indico Capital Partners, while Goldman Sachs International acted as the sole placement agent. This investment valued Preply at USD 1.2B billion and brought the company’s total funding raised to almost USD 300M.

‘Preply combines a strong team, rigorous execution, and impressive growth momentum. The company has built a leading position in the language learning market and has significant potential ahead as it continues scaling its global platform and creating long-term value,’ Indico Capital Partners’ managing general partner Stephan de Moraes comments.

Scaling the Marketplace and Expanding Global Reach

Since its Series C round in 2022, Preply has significantly expanded its global footprint. The company has more than tripled the number of bookable tutors on its platform, increased its language offering by more than 40 languages, and continued growing its presence among both individual learners and business customers.

Today, Preply connects more than 100,000 tutors with learners in 180 countries, offering one-on-one lessons in more than 90 languages. The team sees the company’s evolution over the past several years as one defined by the central idea of combining human expertise with technology to make learning more personalized and effective.

When CEO Kirill Bigai and his team was starting Preply back in 2012, their focus was solving a very practical problem — helping learners find the right tutor. As they scaled globally, it became apparent that technology could help improve every part of that experience.

Human Expertise Meets AI-Powered Personalization

Today, the company’s latest strategic direction centers around its human-led, AI-enabled learning model. Rather than replacing tutors with automation, Preply is investing in AI tools designed to support educators and improve learner outcomes. The company’s AI tutoring co-pilot suite helps tutors track learner progress, receive actionable insights, and automate administrative tasks, allowing them to focus more on teaching. The approach is centered around the brief that the strongest outcomes come when technology empowers teachers and gives learners more personalized support.

With AI becoming an increasingly important part of education technology, Preply’s product development approach remains closely connected to feedback from its global community. The team carefully gathers insights from learners and tutors through product research, support interactions, and behavioral data to identify where technology can remove friction and improve learning. Particularly, Preply’s AI development started with real learning challenges rather than technology for its own sake.

‘We’re excited that even in a world with AI everywhere, Preply still fills a critical need where human to human communication is the centerpiece of the product. Language tutoring has much to gain from AI but at the core, humans still desire and value contact with other humans, and Preply is the core of that relationship. The growth over the past couple years has shown there is ever increasing demand for Preply and the investment in the AI suite around the tutors makes these relationships even more productive,’ Hoxton Ventures’ partner Rob Kniaz tells ITKeyMedia.

Scaling Learning Outcomes

Rapid marketplace expansion brings a familiar challenge for platform companies: maintaining quality while growing supply and demand. For Preply to maintain its well-known quality, tutors remain central to the learning experience. The company evaluates educational quality beyond marketplace ratings, taking into account learner progress, engagement, feedback patterns, and the overall quality of interactions.

As the tutor community continues to grow, Preply aims to create sustainable opportunities for educators while improving the matching process between learners and teachers. In the Preply community, supporting tutors feasibly contributes to better learner outcomes.

According to HolonIQ data cited by Preply, approximately 1.8 billion people worldwide are currently working toward proficiency in a second language. Meanwhile, Preply’s own 2025 Efficiency Study, conducted with LeanLab Education, found that 96% of learners consider human tutoring and real conversations essential to their progress, while 97% said these interactions were key to building confidence. It also indicated that learners using Preply progressed up to 3x faster than average benchmarks, with one in three learners advancing a full CEFR language level within 12 weeks.

Further, the company emphasizes the importance of personalization across different cultures and learning styles. With learners using the platform for different goals — from professional advancement to personal connections — Preply says AI tools must remain flexible and supported by human judgment.

‘We feel extremely fortunate and deeply responsible for shaping how people will learn in the future. Today, we connect people with the world’s best tutors, amplified by AI, bringing learning efficiency to a level that was previously unreachable. We are happy to partner with the WestCap team, who has deep expertise in helping founders to build legendary world-changing brands. This investment will help us to continue to innovate at the intersection of human tutoring and AI, creating opportunities everywhere for people to connect, belong, succeed, and ultimately to progress in their lives no matter where they are in the world,’ Mr Bigai states.

The Next Stage of Global Expansion 

The Series D investment comes as the global language learning market continues expanding. Looking ahead, Preply plans to use the new investment to accelerate product development, expand engineering and AI capabilities, and reach more learners and tutors globally. The company intends to measure its long-term success not only by financial growth or platform scale but on whether more people can indeed successfully achieve their learning goals thanks to Preply.

With this funding round, Preply enters its next stage of development focused on expanding access to high-quality language learning, strengthening its AI capabilities, and building what it describes as the future of human-led education.

‘Preply is setting a new standard for personalized education at scale, and the opportunities are virtually limitless. Data shows that learners thrive when real human instruction is supported by technology, and in today’s increasingly connected world, there is a real demand for democratizing access to high-quality learning in a modern and effective way. Preply has the market-leading product, the experienced leadership team, and the vision to shape how people communicate globally,’ WestCap’s partner Allen Mask concludes.

Among other things, Preply’s continued growth represents a significant milestone for Ukraine’s global technology ecosystem, demonstrating how Ukrainian-founded companies build and scale products with worldwide impact. As the company expands its presence across international markets, its journey reflects the resilience, ambition, and innovation of Ukrainian entrepreneurs operating on a global stage. Preply’s success serves as a reminder that companies born in Ukraine are not only capable of overcoming significant challenges but can also shape the future of major industries worldwide.