Preply


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 classification and recommendation of tutors.

History

The company was launched in 2012 by Serge Lukianov, Dmytro Voloshyn, and Kirill Bigai. Back then, Preply was chosen as one of the most promising startup companies in Ukraine following 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.
In 2013, the company started expanding into markets of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, later expanded into the Polish market. In 2015, Preply received a $120,000 investment from TechStars. In 2016, Preply entered the Brazilian market and announced closing another round.
In June 2016, Preply has announced expanding its services into UK, Germany, and Spanish markets.
Preply raised another $4 million of fundings in 2018. This round was led by Point Nine Capital and Arthur Kosten, Mariusz Gralewski, RTAventures VC and Przemysław Gacek.
The company headquarters is located in Kyiv. Offices are open in Berlin and Barcelona.

Services

As of Forbes' research, in October 2018, Preply had 47,000 registered tutors teaching 27 languages.
In July 2017, as per the company's statistics, almost 100,000 students had found tutors using the platform.
It is estimated that tutors give approximately 30,000 hours of lessons per month at a price varying between $2 and $100 per hour.