Edtech marketplace Preply has secured an additional $35 million of funding. The online language learning platform plans to expand its activities worldwide, citing key opportunities for growth in the Middle East market.

The round was co-led by Owl Ventures and Full In Partners, with participation from previous investors Point Nine Capital, Hoxton Ventures, EduCapital, All Iron, Diligent Capital and Evli Growth Partners, Preply said in a statement. 

The company was founded in 2013 by the Ukrainian-based team of Kirill Bigai, Serge Lukyanov and Dmytro Voloshyn. It has 250 employees with offices in Kyiv and Barcelona.

Kirill Bigai, CEO of Preply, said: “This new funding will help us tackle a variety of strategic priorities, as we plan to double our workforce across all divisions and locations. We’ll add more value for both students and tutors by improving support systems and amplifying the classroom and curriculum experience which has proved so valuable already.”

Preply has seen an exceptional year, with the number of active learners and tutors, GMV and overall revenues quadrupling across the board. The hypergrowth can be attributed to the trend of e-learning adoption, already in motion and now accelerated by COVID-19 lockdowns.

The UAE is a key market for Preply. English is the most popular language of study in the UAE and accounts for more than 25 percent of the demand from learners, while other popular languages include Arabic, French, Spanish, and German. Beyond those more popular language selections, Preply also has UAE residents learning Romanian, Finnish, or even Vietnamese.

“As a firm dedicated to scaling transformative education companies, we are highly optimistic about the online language learning market which is estimated to be worth over $21 billion by 2024," Ross Darwin, Principal of Owl Ventures, said.

(Writing by Seban Scaria; editing by Daniel Luiz)

(seban.scaria@refintiv.com)

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