Unbabel (YC W14) raises $60M Series C to become the world’s translation layer
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Re: Unbabel (YC W14) raises $60M Series C to become the world’s translation layer
#2I've known Vasco since we met in the Pittsburgh tech scene a decade ago. Such a great guy and been through a lot to get here. Congrats Unbabel!
Re: Unbabel (YC W14) raises $60M Series C to become the world’s translation layer
#3Among other things, europe's language diversity is listed as one of the reasons why europe isn't a good place for founding a tech company: the american market is much more homogenous. However, for translation startups, this diversity makes europe the best place to be in the world.
They definitely won't run out of diversity, and it also has the european single market which makes it easy to conduct business across inner-european borders. Furthermore, the single market is only a recent addition so many companies and governments which start having to communicate across language barriers are still figuring out how to do it. Canada for example already has an established system as Switzerland has, too. But on an european level, the market is new and fresh and there is no incumbent that needs to be disrupted. It's great to see unbabel and deepl choosing europe as their main base of operations.
Re: Unbabel (YC W14) raises $60M Series C to become the world’s translation layer
#4Among other things, europe's language diversity is listed as one of the reasons why europe isn't a good place for founding a tech company: the american market is much more homogenous. However, for translation startups, this diversity makes europe the best place to be in the world. They definitely won't run out of diversity, and it also has the european single market which makes it easy to conduct business across inne…
Europe's language diversity is a trivial cost of business and does not impede tech companies.
But, obviously, that does make Europe a very good market for translation companies.
Re: Unbabel (YC W14) raises $60M Series C to become the world’s translation layer
#5Among other things, europe's language diversity is listed as one of the reasons why europe isn't a good place for founding a tech company: the american market is much more homogenous. However, for translation startups, this diversity makes europe the best place to be in the world. They definitely won't run out of diversity, and it also has the european single market which makes it easy to conduct business across inne…
Europe's language diversity is a trivial cost of business and does not impede tech companies. But, obviously, that does make Europe a very good market for translation companies.
Do you have some reasoning or evidence to back up that dismissal of a very plausible concern?
Or do you think it's coincidence, or due to economic structure, that the US and China dominate the tech scene?
This is a pretty widely understood hurdle for EU startups, and it's unclear why you dismiss it out of hand.
Re: Unbabel (YC W14) raises $60M Series C to become the world’s translation layer
#6> We are now translating over 1,000,000 customer service messages a month
> The company told us it now has more than 100k registered translators providing translation services for its platform.
So... each human translator translates (on average) 10 messages per month. In fact, less than 10, because (presumably) some messages are also translated by AI.
Odd numbers.
Re: Unbabel (YC W14) raises $60M Series C to become the world’s translation layer
#7Among other things, europe's language diversity is listed as one of the reasons why europe isn't a good place for founding a tech company: the american market is much more homogenous. However, for translation startups, this diversity makes europe the best place to be in the world. They definitely won't run out of diversity, and it also has the european single market which makes it easy to conduct business across inne…
Europe's language diversity is a trivial cost of business and does not impede tech companies. But, obviously, that does make Europe a very good market for translation companies.
> Europe's language diversity is a trivial cost of business and does not impede tech companies.
Are you suggesting that the language diversity doesn’t impede tech companies from reaching English speaking markets the same as American tech companies do? Or that the language diversity doesn’t impede companies from reaching those language-diverse markets?
Re: Unbabel (YC W14) raises $60M Series C to become the world’s translation layer
#8> We are now translating over 1,000,000 customer service messages a month > The company told us it now has more than 100k registered translators providing translation services for its platform. So... each human translator translates (on average) 10 messages per month. In fact, less than 10, because (presumably) some messages are also translated by AI. Odd numbers.
“100k registered translators” probably means “5-10k active translators” (just a guess).
Either way, translating 1mm customer support messages per month sounds impressive regardless of the number of people translating.
Re: Unbabel (YC W14) raises $60M Series C to become the world’s translation layer
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Europe's language diversity is a trivial cost of business and does not impede tech companies. But, obviously, that does make Europe a very good market for translation companies.
Do you have some reasoning or evidence to back up that dismissal of a very plausible concern? Or do you think it's coincidence, or due to economic structure, that the US and China dominate the tech scene? This is a pretty widely understood hurdle for EU startups, and it's unclear why you dismiss it out of hand.
It is often repeated, but does that make it true or understood?
My reasoning is that if you're a tech company then translation costs are trivial (that's close to obvious)
Now, depending on your industry, cultural differences may be an important factor but that's different. All the well-known tech companies are equally present across the EU so it does not seem like a major problem (that may be different across widely different cultures).
Re: Unbabel (YC W14) raises $60M Series C to become the world’s translation layer
#10Congratulations to Unbabel, but I've heard some nasty horror stories about the inside and I would be skeptical of any claim to become the "world's translation layer".
However, if investors are willing to risk it, then good luck to them. More Portugese tech companies getting funding is always a good thing!