Localize Raises 1.1M to Build Business Translation Services for Startups
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA (PRWEB) November 03, 2015 -- Localize (https://localizejs.com/) has raised a $1.1 million ‘Seed’ Financing round to continue growth of their team and scale their translation software and localization platform for startups. The round was led by FG Angels (via AngelList Syndicate), with participation from Kima, zPark, and Matchstick Ventures.
Two billion internet users transact in foreign languages, but most companies were unable to capture that spend because expanding globally has traditionally been too complex and expensive. That began to change earlier this year, when Localize decided to obsolesce the need for a dedicated internationalization team.
Installation is simple, with a quick copy/paste of their Javascript snippet (like Optimizely or Google Analytics). Once that’s done, advanced routing workflows for content help automate the process, allowing creative energy to flow back into adapting a product for local customs and preferences (like tone, colors, or layout design).
“Typical backend implementations require enormous engineering overhead ... but the Localize platform is flexible and fast, which allows the largest brands in the world to scale up rapidly in new markets." -- Brandon Paton, CEO of Localize
With an increasingly competitive landscape, companies must move quickly to capture global demand -- or risk losing mindshare to locally-oriented firms (or fast-followers like Rocket Internet). This is especially true in linguistically-diverse Europe, where companies must support 24 official working languages.
Although that message has resonated most with marketers and product managers, their API makes Localize programmatically accessible to developers (who are regularly invited to the company’s office in Castro for a monthly hackathon). The dashboard then provides a workspace for collaboration among in-house translators, 3rd-party translation agencies (with real-time quotes), community members, and business translation services.
Customers are loving it. David Fine at Placemeter considers Localize to be the “fastest, easiest, and least expensive option to go global” while Ben Dalton (CTO of RideAmigos) calls it a "game-changer” and Ben McCormack (at Trello) appreciates that their team can “avoid spending precious engineering time” on support.
Capitalizing on the momentum since their TechStars NYC 2015 class, Localize has now served over 70 million pages from enterprise customers like Uber (driver recruiting), Intuit (QBO Labs), WeWork, Airbnb, and Microsoft LATAM, plus more than four hundred more in over 40 countries, with content in over 150 languages. Adoption by SMBs has been fueled by integrations (https://localizejs.com/docs/integrations) and usage-based pricing (which adjusts to any budget).
Recent product launches include a partnership with Textmaster and content labeling, which are the foundation for language-specific media switching, a quality-assurance workflow, and improvements to in-context editing.
As you might have guessed, they’re actively hiring Bay-area engineers (https://angel.co/localize/jobs).
Request a Demo (https://localizejs.com/request-demo) and mention this article to their support team for a three-month promotion (http://snip.ly/BZOM).
Joshua Berk, Localize, https://localizejs.com, +1 415-651-7030, [email protected]
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