#165 Super Agency New Hires, RWS Results, ZOO Capital Raise

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, covering the latest in large language models with Custom.MT’s Chat GPT in Localization Part II, SlatorPod’s The Great ChatGPT and Translation Debate, and Hugging Face’s launch of HuggingChat.

Belgium-based language service provider (LSP) Jonckers sells a majority stake to investment firm Mayfair Equity Partners, following strong organic growth of 75% in 2022. The sale will enable Jonckers to continue its growth trajectory, with plans to invest in technology, expand into new markets and pursue bolt-on M&A opportunities.

Super Agencies Welocalize and Lionbridge have announced new C-level appointments and partnerships. Paul Carr has been named as the new CEO of Welocalize, succeeding co-founder Smith Yewell, who has held the role since 1997.

Menaka Thillaiampalam has been appointed as the new CMO of Lionbridge, bringing over 20 years of experience in technology firms to the role. Additionally, Lionbridge has signed a multi-year contract with Phrase, a translation management system company, to integrate its computer-assisted translation tool into the LSP's workflow.

Over in the UK, RWS released a trading update for the first half of the financial year 2023. While revenues grew by 2.5%, sales declined by 6.8%. The market responded with shares in RWS plunging over 16% in one day.

Media localization provider, ZOO Digital, has raised USD 15.5m in a share placement, with the aim of using the proceeds to acquire a “media localization subsidiary of a leading Japanese technology company.” ZOO Digital's rationale behind the proposed acquisition was to deliver Japanese language services in-house to achieve better margins.