Unbabel
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Translation services, Artificial intelligence |
| Founded | August 2013 |
| Founder | Vasco Pedro, João Graça, Sofia Pessanha, Bruno Silva, Hugo Silva |
| Headquarters | Lisbon and San Francisco , Portugal and United States |
Area served | Global |
| Products | AI-powered translation platform |
Unbabel is a translation platform powered by artificial intelligence, with headquarters located in both Lisbon, Portugal, and San Francisco, California. The company combines Neural Machine Translation, machine learning, and a crowdsourced approach to stand out in the translation services sector, concentrating mainly on customer service communication.
History
Unbabel was founded in August 2013 by Vasco Pedro, João Graça, Sofia Pessanha, Bruno Silva, and Hugo Silva. The startup was incubated by Y Combinator in late 2014 and officially began operations in March 2014.
In May 2014, the company raised $1.5 million in a Seed funding round from investors such as Google Ventures, Matrix Partners, Caixa Capital, Faber Ventures, among others, to develop its platform further. By early 2015, Unbabel was acknowledged as one of the fastest-growing Seed-stage startups within Y Combinator.
A $5 million financing round took place in late 2016, led by Notion Capital and Caixa Capital. Subsequently, in early 2018, Unbabel secured $23 million in Series B funding spearheaded by Scale Venture Partners and Notion Capital, increasing total venture capital investment to $31.2 million. The company continues to operate as a privately owned entity.
On September 24, 2019, Unbabel closed a $60 million Series C financing round led by Point72 Ventures, with contributions from e.ventures, Greycroft, Indico Capital Partners, and prior investors. This brought total capital raised to $91 million to advance its AI-enhanced human translation platform.
In the United States
Unbabel launched a research facility in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in August 2019 under the leadership of U.S.-based researcher Alon Lavie. Its clientele features prominent organizations including easyJet, Booking.com, Rovio Entertainment, Under Armour, Pinterest, and Facebook.