6 ms·

Unbabel (YC W14) raises $60M Series C to become the world’s translation layer

77 points by pauloteixeira 7y ago

nickpinkston 7y ago
I'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!
est31 7y ago
Among 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.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  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.
  - bpodgursky 7y ago
    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.
    - mytailorisrich 7y ago
      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).
      - est31 7y ago
        Even large companies like Amazon or Facebook launch some of their new products only for the american audience and only expand to europe later. And early stage startups don't have the resources of translating their app into two dozen languages, offering customer service in those languages, having a sales infrastructure, etc. It's doable but more expensive if you operated in the american market.
        mytailorisrich 7y ago
        What does that have to do with language? Now, if you're an early stage startup you have your hands full already, you can wait until next year to spread across the EU in different languages. That does not impede anything For support, it's quite easy to hire people who speak different languages and the total cost will be the same.
        bpodgursky 7y ago
        Do you have actual experience building a product with cross-language support, or are you hypothesizing?
        mytailorisrich 7y ago
        I do have experience.
        mbesto 7y ago
  - cj 7y ago
    > 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?
  - est31 7y ago
    For companies the size of Google, it's trivial. For startup companies, it isn't. Translating the interface is comparatively easy but if a large component of your bug reports is in a language you can't understand you have a problem, the same problem that translation startups are trying to fix :).
  - mbesto 7y ago
    > Europe's language diversity is a trivial cost of business and does not impede tech companies. This can't be serious. This is laughable by any stretch of the imagination. Here's a list of how it impedes tech companies: 1. Localization effort for 20+ languages (for mainland EU). Every time a new feature that has some words included in it, it has to be translated. Screenshots in support have to be updated. 2. Training - if you have to train users, you need language specific training. 3. Account management - account/success managers need to be language specific. 4. Support - having support personnel that can speak different languages. None of those are trivial and all cost significant money.
    - mytailorisrich 7y ago
      It is indeed laughable to claim that absolutely all languages should be supported at all times and that a localisation is costly ("screenshot have to be updated", come on...) By the way, in the EU a population equal to the US's is reached by going for the 5 most populous countries (granted, as it happens that does mean 5 languages, including English, but that also means that these 5 languages cover a population larger the US's). The rest of the points, if needed, grow with the size of the customer base and do not impede tech companies' growth in the EU v the US. Rudeness and bluster are not arguments.
      - mbesto 7y ago
        Clearly your definition of "impede" is very different from mine. > should be supported at all times Where did I say that? We're talking about impeding growth, which is along a continuum of time. Any additional "n" amount of effort required during a growth period is going to slow it progress. Additional effort is absolutely necessary to support a different local language by definition. It doesn't mean growth is impossible, it just means it requires extra effort and resources, which in turn means additional time and money. > that a localisation is costly Are you claiming it doesn't incur any cost? At what scale (let's use lines of translated text as a barometer) have you ever operated at? > ("screenshot have to be updated", come on...) Have you ever had to create support documentation in different languages? For the French specifically? Your reaction tells me this is not the case. > bluster are not arguments. Where specifically was I acting in a threatening way in my argument?
- pavlov 7y ago
  Another way of looking at Europe's language diversity is that having to deal with it early on will make you better prepared to go global. The American market is homogenous but crowded. World markets are increasingly open, but Americans aren't necessarily best positioned to take the lead.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > having to deal with it early on will make you better prepared to go global Do we have evidence of this? (European start-ups do tend to have a competitive advantage with administration, given the complexity and diversity of regulatory regimes on the continent. This explains e.g. Spotify (negotiating music rights) and Klarna (negotiating with banks).)
tomp 7y ago
> 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.
- cj 7y ago
  “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.
- awad 7y ago
  "TL;DR: There are about 100K-200K unique workers on Amazon. On average, there are 2K-5K workers active on Amazon at any given time, which is equivalent to having 10K-25K full-time employees. On average, 50% of the worker population changes within 12-18 months. Workers exhibit widely different patterns of activity, with most workers being active only occasionally, and few workers being very active. Combining our results with the results from Hara et al, we see that MTurk has a yearly transaction volume of a few hundreds of millions of dollars." https://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2018/01/how-many-mechanical-turk-workers-are.html https://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2018/01/how-many-mech...
orf 7y ago
Congratulations 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!
- heymijo 7y ago
  > * I've heard some nasty horror stories about the inside> Is this related to their technology, their culture, or both?
  - jventura 7y ago
    Not OP, but I've heard they used to have a compulsory surf day per week or month, or something like that. Not bad if that's your thing..
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
unbabelengineer 7y ago
Please run as fast as you can. This company is toxic waste.
- skellera 7y ago
  Can you explain why you hold that opinion? I’m curious as two people have mentioned it in the comments so far.
  - theunixbeard 7y ago
    That same user posted this “Tell HN”: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19562222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19562222
jklinger410 7y ago
Not sure why you would bet against Google on this.
- onpedrof 7y ago
  Well, even Google is partnering up with Unbabel, so there's potential: https://theworldbreakingnews.com/unbabel-announces-partnership-with-google-through-its-international-growth-program/ https://theworldbreakingnews.com/unbabel-announces-partnersh...
- rabidrat 7y ago
  Google translate is tolerable for reading content in a language you don't know, but it would be terrible for translating messages to your customers! Human-human interaction requires a lot more understanding of nuance and idiom and even things like culture-specific expectations of politeness. Translation AIs are nowhere near good enough.
  - cactus2093 7y ago
    Even when you are interacting with a human support agent they're usually reading/copy/pasting from a script, noticeably jaded and lacking empathy from dealing with a never-ending stream of complaints that they are not empowered to actually do much about, and/or not a native speaker. There's not usually a whole lot of nuance in these interactions as it is.
xhgdvjky 7y ago
there are already excellent suctions to this problem... why is this better? and why do you need/want ai to be involved?
SenHeng 7y ago
Reminds me of back when Google Translate used to be called babel. Did Google acquire them or was it just a branding change?

77 points by pauloteixeira 7y ago

I'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!

est31 7y ago

Among 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.

mytailorisrich 7y ago
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.
- bpodgursky 7y ago
  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.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    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).
    - est31 7y ago
      Even large companies like Amazon or Facebook launch some of their new products only for the american audience and only expand to europe later. And early stage startups don't have the resources of translating their app into two dozen languages, offering customer service in those languages, having a sales infrastructure, etc. It's doable but more expensive if you operated in the american market.
      - mytailorisrich 7y ago
        What does that have to do with language? Now, if you're an early stage startup you have your hands full already, you can wait until next year to spread across the EU in different languages. That does not impede anything For support, it's quite easy to hire people who speak different languages and the total cost will be the same.
        bpodgursky 7y ago
        Do you have actual experience building a product with cross-language support, or are you hypothesizing?
        mytailorisrich 7y ago
        I do have experience.
        mbesto 7y ago
- cj 7y ago
  > 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?
- est31 7y ago
  For companies the size of Google, it's trivial. For startup companies, it isn't. Translating the interface is comparatively easy but if a large component of your bug reports is in a language you can't understand you have a problem, the same problem that translation startups are trying to fix :).
- mbesto 7y ago
  > Europe's language diversity is a trivial cost of business and does not impede tech companies. This can't be serious. This is laughable by any stretch of the imagination. Here's a list of how it impedes tech companies: 1. Localization effort for 20+ languages (for mainland EU). Every time a new feature that has some words included in it, it has to be translated. Screenshots in support have to be updated. 2. Training - if you have to train users, you need language specific training. 3. Account management - account/success managers need to be language specific. 4. Support - having support personnel that can speak different languages. None of those are trivial and all cost significant money.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    It is indeed laughable to claim that absolutely all languages should be supported at all times and that a localisation is costly ("screenshot have to be updated", come on...) By the way, in the EU a population equal to the US's is reached by going for the 5 most populous countries (granted, as it happens that does mean 5 languages, including English, but that also means that these 5 languages cover a population larger the US's). The rest of the points, if needed, grow with the size of the customer base and do not impede tech companies' growth in the EU v the US. Rudeness and bluster are not arguments.
    - mbesto 7y ago
      Clearly your definition of "impede" is very different from mine. > should be supported at all times Where did I say that? We're talking about impeding growth, which is along a continuum of time. Any additional "n" amount of effort required during a growth period is going to slow it progress. Additional effort is absolutely necessary to support a different local language by definition. It doesn't mean growth is impossible, it just means it requires extra effort and resources, which in turn means additional time and money. > that a localisation is costly Are you claiming it doesn't incur any cost? At what scale (let's use lines of translated text as a barometer) have you ever operated at? > ("screenshot have to be updated", come on...) Have you ever had to create support documentation in different languages? For the French specifically? Your reaction tells me this is not the case. > bluster are not arguments. Where specifically was I acting in a threatening way in my argument?
pavlov 7y ago
Another way of looking at Europe's language diversity is that having to deal with it early on will make you better prepared to go global. The American market is homogenous but crowded. World markets are increasingly open, but Americans aren't necessarily best positioned to take the lead.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > having to deal with it early on will make you better prepared to go global Do we have evidence of this? (European start-ups do tend to have a competitive advantage with administration, given the complexity and diversity of regulatory regimes on the continent. This explains e.g. Spotify (negotiating music rights) and Klarna (negotiating with banks).)

tomp 7y ago

> 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.

cj 7y ago
“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.
awad 7y ago
"TL;DR: There are about 100K-200K unique workers on Amazon. On average, there are 2K-5K workers active on Amazon at any given time, which is equivalent to having 10K-25K full-time employees. On average, 50% of the worker population changes within 12-18 months. Workers exhibit widely different patterns of activity, with most workers being active only occasionally, and few workers being very active. Combining our results with the results from Hara et al, we see that MTurk has a yearly transaction volume of a few hundreds of millions of dollars." https://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2018/01/how-many-mechanical-turk-workers-are.html https://www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2018/01/how-many-mech...

orf 7y ago

Congratulations 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!

heymijo 7y ago
> * I've heard some nasty horror stories about the inside> Is this related to their technology, their culture, or both?
- jventura 7y ago
  Not OP, but I've heard they used to have a compulsory surf day per week or month, or something like that. Not bad if that's your thing..
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

unbabelengineer 7y ago

Please run as fast as you can. This company is toxic waste.

skellera 7y ago
Can you explain why you hold that opinion? I’m curious as two people have mentioned it in the comments so far.
- theunixbeard 7y ago
  That same user posted this “Tell HN”: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19562222 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19562222

jklinger410 7y ago

Not sure why you would bet against Google on this.

onpedrof 7y ago
Well, even Google is partnering up with Unbabel, so there's potential: https://theworldbreakingnews.com/unbabel-announces-partnership-with-google-through-its-international-growth-program/ https://theworldbreakingnews.com/unbabel-announces-partnersh...
rabidrat 7y ago
Google translate is tolerable for reading content in a language you don't know, but it would be terrible for translating messages to your customers! Human-human interaction requires a lot more understanding of nuance and idiom and even things like culture-specific expectations of politeness. Translation AIs are nowhere near good enough.
- cactus2093 7y ago
  Even when you are interacting with a human support agent they're usually reading/copy/pasting from a script, noticeably jaded and lacking empathy from dealing with a never-ending stream of complaints that they are not empowered to actually do much about, and/or not a native speaker. There's not usually a whole lot of nuance in these interactions as it is.

xhgdvjky 7y ago

there are already excellent suctions to this problem... why is this better? and why do you need/want ai to be involved?

SenHeng 7y ago

Reminds me of back when Google Translate used to be called babel. Did Google acquire them or was it just a branding change?