Ukrainian-founded online language learning marketplace Preply has raised $50m in its Series C round, bringing its total funding raised to date to $100m.

The Series C was led by Silicon Valley-based EdTech investor Owl Ventures, with previous investors Diligent Capital, Hoxton Ventures, Educapital, Evli Growth Partners, Grupa Pracuj co-founder Przemslaw Gacek and new investors Swisscom Ventures and Orbit Capital also participating.

The Preply marketplace now features more than 32,000 tutors teaching over 40 languages, and the company in the past year tripled the size of its B2B language learning business, counting TikTok owner Bytedance, Mercedes and McKinsey among its clients.

The company said it had seen four-fold user growth in the past two years, with overall user numbers in many territories having almost doubled in the past 12 months.

It now claims to have "hundreds of thousands of learners" and expects the online language learning market set to grow to $47bn by 2025.

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Founded in 2012 by Ukrainians Kirill Bigai, Serge Lukyanov, and Dmytro Voloshyn, Preply now employs 400 people in 30 countries across Europe, the US, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

"I am indescribably proud of what the Preply team has achieved. We have become the world's leading brand in live language classes and the platform of choice for so many tutors who have decided to teach online," said Bigai, co-founder and CEO of Preply.

"With the additional funding, we plan to continue growing our footprint in the US and Europe by doubling down on AI-based matching and delivering on our promise to connect the largest live language learning community in the world.” 

Ross Darwin, principal at Owl Ventures added, “We’re thrilled to partner with Preply on their next phase of growth. 

"We're particularly excited by the continued momentum of the consumer business as well as its new language learning offering for companies, increasingly reliant on international workforces.”

At present, Preply has 230 tutors who were born in Ireland, although 59% are teaching in a different country, and users from more than 100 countries are studying with Irish tutors.

One tutor from Ireland had 137 different students on Preply last year, and the most expensive lessons purchased on Preply in Ireland in 2021 was for English at $100 per hour.

Photo: (l-r) Dmytro Volosyn, Kirill Bigai and Serge Lukyanov.