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Preply co-founders

Preply

Preply, a language learning platform connecting people with tutors, raised $70 million of fresh capital to ramp up its use of artificial intelligence, the company told CNBC exclusively. 

The firm, founded in Ukraine but based in the U.S., said it bagged the funds by issuing new equity and debt. Preply’s founders include Ukrainian entrepreneurs Kirill Bigai, Dmytro Voloshyn, and Serge Lukianov.

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The equity portion was led by Horizon Capital, a venture capital firm focused on investing in emerging entrepreneurs, particularly Ukrainians. It was also backed by Reach Capital, Hoxton Ventures and others.

The funding adds to a $50 million Series C funding round Preply raised last year, and takes its total funding raised to over $170 million.

Preply is a marketplace platform that connects people with human tutors to help them learn new languages. Each teacher on Preply shares a profile that tutees can view, and sets an hourly rate for lessons. Preply gets a cut of the hourly rates tutors charge. 

Preply also sells to large enterprises such as Datadog, GroupM and Bain, which use it to improve their teams’ foreign language skills. The company is not yet profitable, although revenues grew tenfold in the last three years.

Kirill Bigai, Preply’s co-founder and CEO, said the company would use the funds to “extend our leadership in the [online language learning] category through AI-powered human tutors, providing a learning experience which is quickly becoming a game changer.”

“Though the team today is truly global, as a Ukrainian founded company with significant R&D in Ukraine, this is a milestone to be celebrated. One that echoes the resilience and determination of the Ukrainian tech sector and all Ukrainians,” he added.

The funding comes at a time of tighter fundraising conditions for startups, which are struggling to raise money quite as easily as they did in the 2020 and 2021 boom years of technology triggered by Covid-19 lockdowns and monetary easing.

AI has been a notable exception to that rule, thanks to the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and tools like it. Many startups are raising seismic sums of cash as venture capitalists try to find the companies that will win from the upswell of demand for AI tools.

Preply said it already uses machine learning to better match learners and tutors. Now, it’s incorporating more AI into its offering, having launched an AI assistant to help tutors come up with exercises, grammar explanations, and conversations starters. 

It comes as Duolingo, a competitor to Preply, has been incorporating OpenAI’s GPT language processing software to enhance its app’s personalization to users. Shares of Duolingo have more than doubled in price so far this year. Other rivals to Preply include Babbel and Busuu.

It also highlights ongoing interest from tech investors in Ukraine, which has been battered by Russia since Moscow began an invasion of the country early last year. Horizon Capital raised $125 million for a startup fund aimed at backing Ukrainian founders. 

Several founders of billion-dollar “unicorns” come from Ukraine, including Grammarly’s Max Lytvyn and Alex Shevchenko, and GitLab’s Dmitriy Zaporozhets. Google, Samsung and Amazon also have research and development centers in the country.

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Chinese tech giant Tencent posts 13% revenue jump as growth at key gaming unit surges

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Chinese tech giant Tencent posts 13% revenue jump as growth at key gaming unit surges

Chinese tech company Tencent is a gaming giant and the parent company of WeChat, the ubiquitous social messaging app in China.

Cheng Xin | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Tencent on Wednesday reported an annual rise in its top and bottom line in the first quarter fuelled by accelerated growth in its key gaming business.

While revenue beat expectations, its net profit fell short.

Here’s how Tencent did in the first quarter of 2025 versus LSEG estimates:

  • Revenue: 180.02 billion Chinese yuan ($25 billion), versus 174.63 billion yuan expected
  • Net profit: 47.8 billion yuan, versus 52.2 billion yuan expected

Revenue rose 13% year-on-year, while net profit was up 14%.

This breaking news story is being updated.

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Sony shares rise about 2% in volatile trading following share buyback announcement

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Sony shares rise about 2% in volatile trading following share buyback announcement

A file photo of Hiroki Totoki, Sony Group Corporation executive, delivering a keynote address at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, on January 6, 2025. 

Artur Widak | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Sony Group shares rose about 2% Wednesday in volatile trading after the Japanese conglomerate announced a 250 billion yen ($1.7 billion) share buyback and operating income beat estimates.   

Operating income for the last three months of the financial year came in at 203.6 billion yen, beating mean analyst estimates of 192.2 billion yen, though it was down 11% from the same period last year. 

In the earnings report, the Japanese-based electronics, entertainment and finance company announced a stock buyback of shares worth 250 billion yen. 

Sony also provided details on a partial spinoff of its financial unit. The company plans to distribute slightly more than 80% of the shares of common stock of the spinoff to shareholders of Sony Group through dividends. 

The financial unit will list its financial operation this year and will be classified as a discontinued operation in Sony’s accounting from the current quarter, the company added. 

However, Sony’s outlook for the current financial year ending in March was lackluster.

The company forecasted its operating profit to rise a slight 0.3% to 1.28 trillion yen, after flagging a 100 billion yen hit from U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war.

Yet, Sony clarified that the estimated tariff impact did not reflect the trade deal made between the U.S. and China on May 12 and that the actual impact could vary significantly. 

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Samsung Electronics to acquire heating and cooling solutions provider FläktGroup for 1.5 billion euros

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Samsung Electronics to acquire heating and cooling solutions provider FläktGroup for 1.5 billion euros

A Samsung Group flag flutters in front of the company’s Seocho building in Seoul. 

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Samsung Electronics on Wednesday announced that it would acquire all shares of German-based FläktGroup, a leading heating and cooling solutions provider, for 1.5 billion euros ($1.68 billion) from European investment firm Triton. 

Samsung said the acquisition would help it expand in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning business as the market experiences rapid growth. 

“Our commitment is to continue investing in and developing the high-growth HVAC business as a key future growth engine,” said TM Roh, Acting Head of the Device eXperience (DX) Division at Samsung Electronics.  

The acquisition of FläktGroup stands to bolster Samsung’s position in the HVAC market against rivals such as LG Electronics. 

FläktGroup supplies heating, HVAC solutions to a wide range of buildings and facilities, notably data centers which require a high degree of stable cooling. Samsung said it anticipates sustained growth in data center demand due to the proliferation of generative AI, robotics, autonomous driving and other technologies.

FläktGroup has more 60 major customers, including leading pharmaceutical companies, biotech and food and beverage firms, and gigafactories, according to Samsung’s statement.

Samsung said in March that its HVAC solutions had achieved double-digit annual revenue growth over the past five years, and that the company aimed to boost revenue by more than 30% in 2025.

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