The international marketplace for finding private tutors Preply has pulled in $4 million in the seed round. Lead investor was Point Nine Capital, Berlin-based venture fund, investing in SaaS and marketplaces at early stages. “Investors in Preply’s seed round include Arthur Kosten (ex-CMO at Booking.com, 2003-2012), Polish VC RTAventures, founder & CEO of DocPlanner Mariusz Gralewski, Poland’s Grupa Pracuj EO Przemyslaw Gacek, Diligent Capital Partners (Ukraine) and SMRK (Ukraine),” Preply reported.
“Next year we plan to become the leading marketplace for finding private tutors of foreign languages in the world,” co-founder and CEO of Preply Kirill Bigai said.
Managing Partner of Point Nine Capital Pawel Chudzinski, in turn, said that the fund took this opportunity to enter the fragmented online tutoring market, evaluating the focus on consumer experience and global proof of the concept, and will contribute to the efforts of the Preply team to win leadership on it. The new round of financing will support the long-term development of new products, including the Preply calendar, instant booking options, and the launch of a mobile application.
In addition, the funding allowed Preply to open a second office in Berlin and build up a team of senior professionals working on the product: managers, designers and developers. In the near future the startup plans to search and appoint VP of Marketing.
The company was founded in 2012 by Bigai, Sergey Lukyanov (Head of Product Design) and Dmytro Voloshyn (CTO) with offices in Kyiv and Berlin.
Some 70,000 square meters of new office real estate will be offered in Kyiv in 2018-2019, Head of the Consulting Department of UTG Rostyslav Symonov has said. “We are planning to commission 70,000 square meters in 2018-2019. These will be the third line of Astarta Business Center, which has shown a very good pace of renting out, Europassage Business Center, Forum Amursky Business Center, office buildings on Volodymyrska and Sahaidachnoho streets, and Unit City,” he said during a press conference on the results of the real estate market in H1, 2018 hosted by the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency on July 11.
The expert said that IT companies, which account for 44% of tenants, will form the principal demand for rent of offices in the capital. He added that this makes office real estate more resistant to currency fluctuations that might occur in 2018-2019 due to the payment of Ukraine’s foreign liabilities.
According to UTG, 128 business centers operate in Kyiv. Class A offices account for 30.7%, class B – 63.9%. Class B offices are in high demand, while demand for class A offices is formed mainly by movement of the existing tenants.
Symonov also said that Kyiv office real estate market will grow significantly as soon as Ukrainian IT companies start making their own products. He added that a trend for investment in purchase of offices should be expected in Kyiv.
Kyiv-based UTG was founded in 2001. Its core business is overall support for development projects. More than 100 real estate objects were opened with the participation of UTG, including Lavina Mall, New Way, Ocean Plaza, Gulliver, Pyramida, and Komod (all based in Kyiv), Megamall (Vinnytsia), Most City Center (Dnipro), French Boulevard (Kharkiv), and Global.UA (Zhytomyr). UTG also operates in Russia, Belarus, Georgia, and Moldova.
France’s Alstom, the producer of rolling stock and infrastructure solutions, plans to open a representative office in Ukraine in several months, in particular, the office in Kyiv, Managing Director for Western and Central Asia at Alstom Bernard Peille told Interfax-Ukraine during the presentation of the first freight electric locomotive for Azerbaijan Railways in Astana (Kazakhstan). “We have found a person who would present the interests of Alstom in Ukraine and develop business for us. This person would be also responsible for opening of our office in Kyiv,” he said.
Peille also said that Alstom plans to open the office in Kyiv in coming months, adding that he cannot specify the date, as many things depend on administrative work in Ukraine, which the company does not know well.
Prima T8 AZ8A freight electric locomotive presented in Astana on Wednesday is made under a contract signed by the company and Azerbaijan Railways for supply of 50 locomotives, including Prima M4 AZ4A passenger locomotives.
