The online education sector is undergoing a deep transformation centered around "human-machine collaboration." On January 21, global language learning leader Preply announced a $150 million Series D funding round. This round, led by WestCap, not only brought its total funding to $299 million but also raised its valuation to $1.2 billion, officially entering the "unicorn" club.
Founded in 2012, Preply now has over 100,000 real human tutors, covering more than 180 countries and 90 languages. Unlike teaching platforms that rely entirely on algorithms, Preply's core competitiveness lies in "real human tutors + AI co-pilot." The company's latest AI toolset can generate class summaries, grammar feedback, and daily exercises for students, and also provides AI assistants for tutors, helping them quickly create personalized teaching materials, significantly improving teaching efficiency.
Although AI technology plays an increasingly important role on the platform, Preply emphasizes that the goal of AI is not to replace humans, but to enhance human interaction. Internal research shows that 96% of learners believe real conversations with humans are essential for language progress. Therefore, the new funding will mainly be used to improve AI and data processing capabilities, helping real human tutors free from tedious administrative tasks, and focus on high-value emotional communication and language guidance.
Currently, about 1.8 billion people are learning foreign languages, and the direct-to-consumer language learning market is expected to reach $227 billion by the end of 2025. With strong growth of three times its revenue over the past five years, Preply plans to further expand its engineering team, leveraging WestCap's experience in expanding markets like Airbnb, to redefine the logic of language learning in the digital age.
