Siena partakes in Preply’s Unicorn round

The secondaries fund fuels the spread of Estonian on the Ukrainian language-learning platform

Estonian venture capital secondaries fund Siena recently participated in a $150 million Series D funding round of Preply, the Ukrainian-founded global language-learning platform, which launched the company into unicorn status, valuing at $1.2 billion post-investment.

Siena’s fund focuses on direct investments in high-growth, late-stage startups, providing liquidity for looking for early returns. Its portfolio includes Bolt, Veriff, Booksy, and Oura Ring, among others.

“We have been in contact with Preply’s CEO Kirill Bigai and have followed the company’s development for several years. Preply was founded in Kyiv in 2012, and has demonstrated remarkable resilience and focus, evolving into a clear leader with strong, sustained growth in the highly competitive language-learning market,” said Siena’s Managing Partner Rando Rannus.

Preply connects more than 100,000 language tutors with learners across 180 countries, offering one-on-one lessons in over 90 languages, including Estonian.

The new capital will allow Prelpy to expand its product and engineering teams to enhance the platform experience and accelerate global growth as it advances its AI and data capabilities.

The round was led by U.S.-based strategic operating and investing firm WestCap. New investors in the round also included, among others, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Horizon Capital, alongside Siena.