SlatorPod

Vasco Pedro, CEO of Unbabel, joins SlatorPod to discuss the company’s growth journey — from identifying the initial use case to raising USD 60m in Series C funding in 2019, and beyond.Vasco outlines Unbabel’s translation pipeline and underlying technology. He describes the importance of the human-in-the-loop model and the ability humans have to impact the output of machine learning (ML) models.The CEO talks about the challenges of ‘going remote’ overnight in response to Covid. Vasco says culture plays an important role in attracting top talent globally in the highly-competitive AI / ML space.Vasco also shares his experience with investors, such as Point72’s Sri Chandrasekar, lead investor in Unbabel’s Series C, who provide actionable insights on how to further scale the business.First up, Florian and Esther discuss the launch of the flagship Slator 2021 Language Industry Market Report. The duo share highlights from the 80-page, newly-released Market Report, which features a wealth of insights and data.They also tackle over a week’s worth of M&A, as Florian unpacks Big Language Solutions’ acquisition of US-based interpreting provider Language Link, and discusses the backstory to Big CEO Jeff Brink’s “tenacity, honesty, and desire” in closing the deal.Esther talks about translation and interpreting provider Propio Language Services’s acquisition of Vocalink — also in the US — while in Germany, she highlights GEtraNet’s acquisition of Lingua-World. Florian closes by reviewing AI transcription agency Verbit’s acquisition of captioning provider VITAC.

On SlatorPod this week, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week — and share the exciting agenda for SlatorCon Remote, which is just around the corner. Florian briefly discusses the breaking news of Appen shares taking a beating, causing trading to halt. Esther talks about Canadian LSP TRSB’s acquisition of local rival Anglocom. According to TRSB CEO Mary Kazamias, Anglocom’s in-house linguists were central to the acquisition. The two discuss Google’s latest research paper on machine translation. Conclusion: It is better to hire professional translators to train an advanced MT system than have amateur crowd workers do it manually.Meanwhile, Esther shares details of a huge tender underway in Sweden as Stockholm began the hunt for a single vendor to supply interpretation services for the entire region. Taking a step back from day-to-day translation and interpretation, the duo talk about LSP Translated’s announcement that it will take part in Ocean Globe Race 2023.Esther shares the latest numbers from Slator’s Language Industry Job Index for May. The index has been on a four-month growth streak, climbing more than 30 points year to date.

Florian is starstruck this week as Rachel Carruthers (Head of Internationalization and Localization) and Michael Levot (Localization Program Lead) from his favorite SaaS tool, Canva, join SlatorPod.Rachel and Michael join the Pod from Down Under to talk about Canva’s hub-and-spoke model for Localization, which enables them to run a “[expletive] massive” localization operation across no less than 104 languages.They talk about deciding what to build and what to buy in the way of language technology, and discuss their language services vendor model, which currently involves a half a dozen LSPs.First up, Florian and Esther discuss a Paris-based RSI study which concludes that interpreters find remote simultaneous interpreting (RSI) more difficult than onsite.Meanwhile, Google Translate marked one billion installs by looking back on the language capabilities it has added since launching in 2010. The duo also talk about proposed regulation from the EU around AI systems.Florian then talks about the latest set of financial results from Australia-listed LSP, Straker Translations, and Esther unpacks Ai-Media’s equity raise and upcoming acquisition of US-based captioning technology provider EEG.

Spence Green, CEO and co-founder of Lilt, discusses their journey from research to enterprise-scale AI translation agency. He highlights performance improvements in their interactive translation system, their connector-first approach, and plans to enhance the customer review cycle. Florian and Esther also review the impact of the PRO Act, TransPerfect's Q1 growth, and discuss AI video generation and ZOO's financials.

Papercup CEO Jesse Shemen and Science Advisor Simon King join the pod to discuss how they develop synthetic voices to make videos accessible in multiple languages.The two talk about the underlying components of the Papercup workflow and outline the role that technology as well as humans play in the creation of multilingual videos.Simon, a Professor of Speech Processing at the University of Edinburgh, discusses the evolution of text-to-speech technology, the main technical hurdles in producing highly natural, emotional voices, as well as the adoption and acceptance curve for synthetic voices.Jesse shares some of Papercup’s company milestones, which include raising a total of ca. USD 14m in seed and series A rounds. He also explains why there is room for many different startups in the multilingual speech and video translation space.While Papercup has an ambitious goal of making videos accessible in any language, Jesse says startups will likely expand the market rather than replace traditional dubbing, particularly for high-end production environments.First up, Florian and Esther touch on NDVIA’s real-time MT offering, a mouse that transcribes and translates your voice at the press of a button, and Microsoft’s USD 19.7bn acquisition of AI speech technology firm Nuance.In language industry-adjacent funding, the two discuss data-for-AI leader and Appen rival Scale, which doubled its valuation (to a whopping USD 7bn) after announcing they had raised a further USD 325m in funding.They also talk about signs of a boom in the language industry, pointing to Super Agencies reporting strong results, anecdotal evidence from busier-than-ever LSP staff, a soaring Language Industry Job Index, and RWS shares (SlatorPro).

Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week, where they compare the stock performance of the handful of publicly-listed LSPs both year-to-date (Q1 2021) and from the start of 2020. Florian calls out ZOO Digital and Keywords Studios — both of which are up more than 60% from January 2020 — and the two talk about Appen’s fall from the dizzying heights of mid-August 2020.Florian shares news from the Sunshine State, where web localization platform MotionPoint secured a major investment from private equity firm Lightview Capital.Esther talks about more M&A in media localization, as entertainment heavyweight Deluxe acquired a business unit from Sony Electronics. The duo talk about an article in Bloomberg that highlighted the increasing demand for dubbing in the US; that is, “even Americans are embracing dubbing.” Florian once again marvels at GPT-3. This time, it’s the stats that impress him: 300 apps or startups built on GPT-3 — and 4.5 billion words generated by the algorithm per day!

Babylon Health Content Design and Localization Lead, Michela Simonelli, joins the pod to talk about hyper-local digital content, localizing high-touch health materials, and the growing telehealth market.Michela shares her professional journey prior to Babylon Health, which saw her spend 11 years “agency-side” in multiple language service providers (LSPs). Michela discusses how content design interacts with localization at the digital health provider and collaborating across functions with epidemiologists, internationalization teams, and data scientists.She also broaches the subject of machine translation (MT), explains why there is currently no interpreting provision for medical appointments, and identifies an opportunity for LSPs that can provide a holistic service for telehealth.First up, Florian and Esther discuss two M&A and funding stories in the media localization space.Private equity-backed Iyuno completed its acquisition of major rival SDI Media to become Iyuno-SDI Group, the largest pure-play media localization company globally, with combined revenues of around USD 400m in 2020. A few days later, UK-based ZOO Digital raised GBP 7.4m (USD 10.3m) in a share placement on the London Stock Exchange. The publicly-traded company said it plans to spend the proceeds on building hubs in India and Southeast Asia, expanding international business development, and on “longer range” R&D.Florian shares news from multilingual video conference startup KUDO, which secured an additional USD 21m in a Series A round, bringing total funds raised to USD 28m.On the flipside, he talks about a survey conducted by the Belgian Chamber of Translators and Interpreters (CBTI-BKVT), which revealed that conference interpreters in the country saw their income decline by about 50% following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Language I/O Co-founders Heather Shoemaker (CEO) and Kaarina Kvaavik (CBO) join the pod this week to discuss their newly announced Series A round, channel partnerships with CRM systems, expanding beyond their core multilingual customer support offering, and the future of subscription-based pricing models.The two duo join SlatorPod fresh off their USD 5m funding round, which was announced on March 23, 2021. Kaarina and Heather discuss their journey from founding and bootstrapping Language I/O to bringing on angel and VC investors in early 2021, and their plans for deploying the latest investment.Heather talks about the challenge of working with user-generated customer support content and Language I/O’s approach to identifying and dealing with “problematic” content. She describes Language I/O’s CRM integrations, and their approach to supporting major enterprises with their MT-based multilingual customer support offering.Kaarina talks about the company’s tiered-subscription pricing models for both machine-only and human post-edited translation, their use of channel partnerships with CRM systems, growing the sales team, and their plans to expand beyond the customer support arena.First up, Florian and Esther discuss the role of the “translators” (read: interpreters) that facilitated the recent US-China talks in Alaska, and the differences in the coverage they received from Vice, South China Morning Post, and Reuters.Esther shares highlights from video game services provider Keywords Studios’ 2020 financial results. The company grew revenues by 14% from 2019, while its Localization segment was the only business line to report declines. Florian applauds the success of his latest SaaS find: Copy.ai. The startup raised USD 2.9m with its multilingual copy-generating offering and is built atop OpenAI’s GPT-3, the world’s largest language model. Copy.ai follows in the footsteps of OthersideAI, which raised USD 2.6m in 2020.The two also talk about Slator’s newly released Pro Guide on Translation Pricing and Procurement, which dives deep into established and emerging translation pricing models, and lifts the lid on translation and localization procurement practices among buyers.

In this week’s SlatorPod, Farfetch's Head of Linguistic Services, Alex Katsambas talks about the online luxury fashion platform’s localization model.Alex talks about Farfetch’s internal teams, churning out billions of words annually, the importance of sustainability in content messaging, and why return-on-investment for localization cannot be measured immediately.He shares insights into Farfetch’s approach to content differentiation, and explains why treating various content verticals differently is essential, particularly when thinking about integrating machine translation (MT).Having already rolled out MT for two languages, Alex tackles expanding Farfetch’s use of MT in the coming months, and explains why MT is good news for human experts. He also discusses the challenges and opportunities presented by multilingual SEO.First up, Florian and Esther discuss the language industry news of the week. Florian talks about DeepL smashing it in global traffic rankings, and adding 13 languages.Esther shares some takeaways from a TechCrunch feature piece profiling media localization giant Iyuno, and picks out some key growth stats from an analysis of the Slator 2021 LSPI.

Travod CEO Elena Grigoras joins the pod to discuss LSP’s past, present, and future. Elena talks about the company’s client mix and how Travod manages the balance of servicing both third-party LSPs — initially the company’s primary focus — and end customers. She discusses the relationship with Travod’s sister companies, Worldminds and Traduno (translation technology arm), and parent company Mondia Technologies Group. Elena outlines Travod’s technology stack, which includes their proprietary business management system, Traduno, and discusses market demand for customer portals.Elena shares Travod’s approach to business development and hiring sales talent, and talks about the company’s recent website relaunch. She also gives her insight on translation pricing trends, touching on the role of the per-word rate, the impact of effort-based pricing, and her vision of a value-based pricing model.As CEO of a UK-headquartered business with a large employee base in Moldova and Romania, Elena talks about the unfolding impact of Brexit. She also unpacks the differing approaches to geographical expansion: building from scratch vs. M&A.First up are Florian and Esther, who share more insights and analysis from the Slator 2021 Language Service Provider Index (LSPI). Florian talks about Netflix’s approach to A/B testing website copy in various languages, and Penn’s State College’s research into machine-generated content detection. Esther shares some recent financial information from interpreting giant LanguageLine, which derived more than 90% of its USD 618m revenues from remote interpreting services in 2020. The two close with a few words on an intriguing company memo from Japan-based LSP Rozetta, which has banned its employees from speaking any language other than their native one.