Imagine visiting a foreign country, a dream come true for many adventure-seeking travelers. Sure, everyone would enjoy the versatile culture, sightings, and native population, but what if you can’t even buy some water without being lost in translation?

This is a nightmare scenario for many, but for Sergey, Dmytro, and Kirill, traveling was their favorite pastime. Because they traveled a lot, they also struggled to communicate when in a foreign country. With this in mind, the trio focused on creating a portable translation platform designed for language-confused travelers.

Preply is currently the most popular tutoring tool used around the globe. The platform helps users learn diverse languages and get in touch with expert tutors. With Preply, users experience the fastest language assessment available!

If you want to learn more about the fascinating story of the trio’s journey to becoming a number one online language-tutoring tool, read down below.

Budding Years

Sergey Lukyanov was born in Kyiv, in the early 1990s into a loving family. Ever since he was a young boy, Sergey was described as having a restless spirit. There was always something exciting happening around him. Sergey was a very curious child and did not hold off on asking a lot of questions. The most exciting moment that changed him forever was the moment he set his eyes on his first computer. The sole design of the computer, along with the machine’s ability to perform amazing actions, made Sergey even more thirsty for knowledge. His internet connection opened the windows to all the layers of the world. India, Egypt, and Africa were some of the most thrill-provoking countries Sergey had learned of. He vowed to himself that he would not stand still until he had traveled and learned as much as he could about the world. His buddy, Dmytro Voloshyn was not so different in terms of viewing the world through the digital admiring spectrum. Dmytro was also born in Kyiv. As a millennial, he witnessed both the fall and the rise of the new digital era. Dmytro loved spending his time on the computer- the machine was Dmytro’s gate into new and exciting ideas. Unlike Sergey, Dmytro’s curiosity was aimed towards the logic and mechanics behind the computer’s functions and the way it was manufactured. This was a breaking point that led Dmytro into the complex world of engineering.

Kirill Bigai, another Kyiv-born boy during the same time as Sergey and Dmytro. Much like the others, Kirill adored the uproar of technology. It was a new and exciting field for Kirill, and he just couldn't wait to dominate it. Kirill was described as being a born leader. He had a certain charisma to him, charming everyone he conversed with. Apart from his charms, Kirill had an inexplicable passion for computer machinery and the logic behind every electronic device.

Filled Years

The trio of inventors had dedicated most of their lives to understanding the processes of engineering, digitalization, and global media. During their college years, the three of them stayed in close touch with the tech world. Kirill studied to become a telecommunications engineer, while Dmytro went on to become a digital media specialist.

Sergey first encountered the world of eCommerce when he landed a job at TemplateMonster.com as a web strategist and designer. All three managed to build up an extensive career in the digital world, which brought them one step closer to dipping their toes in the world of eCommerce.

Before launching Preply, Kirill became an intelligent network engineer at Vodafone, which opened many doors for future cooperation. While working as a mobile operator, Kirill became increasingly interested in establishing his own startup.

Sunny Opportunities

It was in early 2011 when Sergey, Kirill, and Dmytro met up to discuss their ideas and goals for a future business venture. All were like-minded with ideas of an application that could be used and shared by many around the world. After substantial brainstorming and sleepless nights, the three lads came across the idea for FindGuru.me, a blueprint of what would later become Preply. FindGuru was a marketplace for searching, booking, and comparing a wide variety of group classes for different fields of interest. The app would include detailed inscriptions from sports, languages, cooking, driving, and a lot more.

Shortly after becoming a part of the e-business world, Sergey, Dmytro, and Kirill decided to implement their love for traveling and invent a teaching platform applicable to as many languages as possible. Preply would be launched as a globally-known online language learning marketplace, where tutors and students can establish an educational bond serving a sole purpose- acquiring a new language. Sergey’s love for traveling was crowned by establishing Preply.

By 2014, Preply was collaborating with 3.000 tutors in 58 countries. Way to go, Preply!

Ups and Downs

Thanks to the fact that the trio were all already established entrepreneurs individually, and by this alone, Preply was destined for greatness. Preply’s main focus was establishing a trustworthy and effective link between the user and the tutor. The app was focused on building the perfect personalized learning space where the users can achieve their goals in the quickest way possible.

Preply allows its users to learn phrases, basic conversation, as well as to translate words and sentences in many languages. It is an online tool, so all the answers are instant, and confused travelers won’t have to worry anymore.

Like many budding startups, Preply met some downfalls. Because it started as the now offline FindGuru, the app wasn’t encountered with much interest. Money issues, media exposure, and overall presence in the online world of education were only a few of the hurdles that the partners had to overcome. Preply had to fight off its competitors to become one of the most popular and most used apps for traveling.

When it was still starting, Preply was chosen as one of the most promising startups that emerged from Ukraine. This estimation was concluded when the company earned $180,000 from angel investors in an initial seed round. The investor was Semyon Dukach.

Successful Milestones

Three years after its start, in 2015 Preply received a $120,000 investment from TechStars, a much-needed gust of wind for the tech entrepreneurs.

In 2015 Preply managed to enter the Polish market, which was a huge success for the newborn app. Good news travels fast, and soon enough, the Polish digital sphere was bursting with excitement with the arrival of a new tutoring platform.

The good word about the app spread across the world like wildfire once Preply was backed up by some of the biggest players in the investment business. Investors such as Point Nine Capital and Arthur Kosten were some of the people that stood by Preply’s initial growth into the world. After gaining some recognition, Preply scored in a few rounds with the final one being in March when Sergey, Dmytro, and Kirill received a whopping $34.996.306.000 which secured them among the greatest in the world of online education. Their last investor was Hexton Ventures.

Preply, Today

Sergey, Dmytro, and Kirill maintained their ambitions and managed to get their names across the world, and in many languages. Preply’s headquarters are in Brooklyn, Massachusetts, in the United States. The company has more than 1000+ employees that are constantly looking for new ways to bring languages closer to the learners. The employees help the language learning process, too, as they come from 44 different nationalities.

Simple experimentation with data-based learning brought Preply to the top of the language tutoring chain. Preply tutors come from over 185 countries. Over the years, Preply has raised a total of $50.6M until 2021, and they did so in funding for over eight rounds. Thanks to the trio’s determination, Preply now offers users a comfortable opportunity to master a new language. With the expertise of Preply’s tutors, the results are sure to be amazingly satisfactory.

Sergey, Dmytro, and Kirill successfully created the perfect platform for potential users and future learners to get in touch with experienced tutors.

Preply paved new ways of finding the best affordable language tutors at any given time. No more will travelers struggle with being lost in translation. Everyone will feel free to learn their target language on the go!