Ukrainian Tech Ecosystem Achievements 2021: Preply

Iryna Supruniuk

1721 posts

Communication Lead, TechUkraine

This was a defining year for Ukrainian tech, plenty of memorable moments: GitLab’s IPO, Grammarly became decacorn, 252 000 tech specialists in Ukraine, new VCs, media, tech educational institutions, global tech moguls hatched audacious deals.

TechUkraine initiated the project “Ukrainian Tech Ecosystem Achievements 2021,” where we share the stories of the prominent stakeholders of the sphere – tech giants, startups, clusters, funds, media, accelerators, celebrating the success of the year and discovering what lies ahead in 2022 and beyond.

Let’s deep dive into some of the most significant achievements-making developments of the year!

Preply

What are the key achievements of 2021?

Opening of the American office. The Preply team, in addition to offices in Ukraine and Spain, now has a representative office in the United States. It currently has up to 10 specialists, the number of which tends to grow;
Preply continues to work on the development of group lessons on the platform and B2B products. For instance, “Preply English Group Classes“ was launched on Product Hunt.
The platform won several awards in 2021. For example, Preply was selected as one of the 100 best EdTech projects in North America, according to HolonIQ. We also received the Ukrainian Startup Awards in the nomination: The Revenue Hack of 2020.

Which challenges were the most impactful during the year?

Preply attracted a round of B-round investment of $35 million in March 2021. The participants of the round became Owl Ventures and Full In Partners. And those who had previously invested in the company: Point Nine Capital, Hoxton Ventures, EduCapital, All Iron, Diligent Capital, and Evli Growth Partners. The round was also joined by angel investors: David Helgason, co-founder of Unity Software, and Niklas Ostberg, CEO of Delivery Hero.

How will Ukrainian tech be developing? Approach, projections and perspectives for 2022?

Development of projects aimed at personalization and individual approach to users. In this regard, the development and experiments on the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in tech projects and online platforms will continue;
Corporate training. Companies and their top management are interested in specialists quickly and efficiently acquiring new knowledge and effectively improving their skills. Therefore, EdTech platforms need to pay attention to the development of this field. That includes providing users with quality learning management systems (LMS), which can be used to track learning progress.