Weglot Lands $49M In Hot Translation Software Space

You can’t sell to someone if they don’t understand what you’re saying. This is one of the more obvious reasons startups offering online translation tools might present an appealing proposition for both brands and investors.

To that end, translation-focused companies have been raising significant capital lately, with over $490 million going to the space since the beginning of last year, per Crunchbase data. The latest large funding recipient, Paris-based Weglot, announced today that it raised 45 million euros ($49 million) in a growth funding round backed by Partech.

Founded in 2016, Weglot provides no-code website translation technology, marketing its SaaS tools to brands to display their websites into multiple languages. Customers include Microsoft, Spotify and DoorDash.

Weglot says its software enables customers to translate content in over 100 different languages. It says its tools are currently in use across more than 50,000 websites worldwide.

The Weglot round is one of several relatively recent, sizable investments in the translation space. Below, using Crunchbase data, we aggregated a list of companies that have closed rounds over the past five quarters, collectively pulling in just shy of $500 million over that period:

In addition to Weglot, other standouts include:

• New York-based Smartling, provider of tools to automate and manage translated content across websites and platforms, raised $160 million in a December Series E round.
• Lokalise, a translation management and localization tool provider for online businesses, raised $50 million in a December Series B round.
• Synthesia, a London-based startup offering a platform to create business videos in multiple languages from text using avatars, raised $50 million in a December Series B round.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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