Education Technology · Profile from Education Technology Research Companion
Preply, Inc.
The Ukrainian-founded online tutoring marketplace, now US-incorporated with its largest teams in Kyiv and Barcelona (verify), that matches learners with more than 100,000 freelance tutors, mainly for languages; keeps the full fee for every trial lesson plus a sliding commission on later lessons; kept operating through Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine; turned EBITDA-positive around late 2024; and became a unicorn with a $150m Series D led by WestCap at a $1.2bn valuation in January 2026.
At a glance
- Founded
- 2012, Kyiv, Ukraine
- Founders
- Kirill (Kyrylo) Bigai (CEO), Dmytro Voloshyn, Serge (Serhiy) Lukyanov
- Headquarters
- Incorporated in the US (Delaware, verify); offices in New York, Barcelona and Kyiv (reported; verify current list); historically Kyiv-based
- Ownership / structure
- Private, venture-backed; investors include WestCap, Horizon Capital, Owl Ventures, Hoxton Ventures and others
- Leadership (2026)
- Kirill Bigai, co-founder and CEO; Dmytro Voloshyn, co-founder (verify current role)
- Segment and buyer
- Consumer online tutoring marketplace (mostly languages, especially English; also academic subjects); paid by individual learners; Preply Business sells corporate language training to employers
- Scale
- 100,000+ tutors teaching learners in ~180 countries (company, January 2026); ~750 employees, ~150 in Kyiv (reported, 2025–26); revenue not disclosed (third-party estimates vary widely; verify); EBITDA-positive since about Q4 2024 (CEO statement, reported)
- Capital raised / valuation
- ~$299m total raised (company, January 2026); $1.2bn valuation in the $150m Series D (January 2026); previous valuation estimated at ~$500–600m (2023, reported, not confirmed)
- Signature moves
- Marketplace with trial-lesson fee plus sliding commission; Series A (Hoxton) and Series B (Owl) during the pandemic tutoring boom; Preply Business; wartime continuity from February 2022, including raising money during the war; AI-enhanced human tutoring (lesson summaries, homework, matching); $150m Series D unicorn round (2026). Misses and controversies: tutor complaints about commission levels and the trial-lesson fee; dependence on paid marketing; discount and subscription billing complaints
9 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2012
Founding in Kyiv
Launch / founding
2016
Online Languages Focus and Commission Model
Pricing change / business model and focus
2020
Series A Hoxton Ventures
Funding round
2021
Preply Business
Launch (B2B product)
2021
Series B Owl Ventures and US Office
Funding round / geographic expansion
2022
Series C Raised During War
Funding round
2022
Wartime Operations
Restructuring / operational continuity
2024
AI Enhanced Human Tutoring
AI launch
2026
Series D WestCap Unicorn
Funding round