This is a guest post by Richard Armstrong who is an early stage investor in many startups in both SE Asia and globally. Plus Richard has cofounded several companies.
Guest Author: Richard Armstrong
DeepL, the AI language translation startup that has taken the tech world by storm, recently raised $300 million in a Series D funding round.
And my venture firm was actually one of the first investors.
This investment has not only pushed its valuation to a whopping $2 billion but also set the stage for the company’s ambitious plans for growth, especially in the B2B sector.
Founded in 2017 by Jarek Kutylowski, DeepL is not your typical startup. Having began its life as the online dictionary Linguee, DeepL has positioned itself as a formidable competitor to industry giants like Google Translate.
Deepl’s success stems from its cutting-edge neural network architecture, vast training data, and meticulous human editor input. This combination has resulted in translation services that are not just accurate but also capture the subtle nuances of language that often get lost in automated translations
So, what makes DeepL stand out in the crowded field of AI translation?
It’s all about focus. While other tech behemoths like Google and OpenAI juggle multiple ventures, DeepL has honed its expertise on one thing: language translation.
This laser-sharp focus has allowed DeepL to fine-tune its algorithms and deliver translations that consistently outperform its competitors in terms of accuracy and quality.
As Kutylowski puts it, “Translate isn’t the core business of Google — it’s one of the 100 side gigs. For us, it’s everything.”
The recent funding round, was led by Index Ventures and supported by ICONIQ Growth, Teachers’ Venture Growth, and Atomico. My firm participated in their Series B a little over a year ago.
This influx of capital is a massive vote of confidence from some of the most influential players in the venture capital world. And the company will use this funding to ramp up its R&D efforts, expand its global presence, and attract top-tier talent across various departments.
DeepL’s B2B growth strategy is particularly interesting to me. As it turns out there are a number of industries like customer support where precise communication is vital.
And so companies in those sectors are willing to pay for a specialized solution that goes above and beyond what is normally available.
Also the company is expanding its language repertoire bringing their total to 32.
And they’ve introduced new products like DeepL Write Pro, an AI-assisted writing tool designed to help businesses craft clear and professional texts. This reflects how the company wants to go deep in solving their customers’ use cases beyond translation alone.
I’ll be tracking Deepl’s success closely these coming years as I foresee much greater things for the company. They’re in an exciting space that is evolving quickly due to AI.
And while they have some deep pocketed players like OpenAI and Google Translate as competition… I believe they’ve got the focus and positioning to come out on top in their niche.
