DeepL, the German scaleup that offers AI-powered translation services, announces that it has raised an investment worth $300 million and reached a valuation of $2 billion. The round has received strong support from new investors, who will contribute to DeepL’s mission to revolutionize the way companies communicate around the world. Leading the round is Index Ventures, and late-stage investors include ICONIQ Growth and Teachers’ Venture Growth, among others, alongside long-standing DeepL investors such as IVP, Atomico and WiL.
“We’ve reached a point in the AI boom where companies that are already adopting AI are beginning to distinguish between momentary enthusiasm and secure solutions that can solve a company’s real problems,” Jarek Kutylowski, founder and CEO of DeepL, said in a statement . This new investment comes during what is shaping up to be DeepL’s most revolutionary year yet and demonstrates the crucial role our language AI platform has in solving the complex language challenges facing global businesses today. We always strive for continuous growth and innovation to expand our solutions and ensure that they remain industry leaders in terms of quality, accuracy, and safety. We are therefore committed to creating a future where every business, wherever it is, can operate at scale seamlessly thanks to our AI.”
The new investment comes at a time of significant growth for DeepL, which has acquired a client network of more than 100,000 businesses, government agencies and other organizations around the world, including Zendesk, Nikkei, Coursera and Deutsche Bahn. DeepL’s linguistic AI platform provides support for corporate communication to foster international growth and cost savings. In response to increased demand from international companies, DeepL has intensified expansion activities and strategic investments in key markets over the past year. In January 2024, it opened an office in the United States to strengthen its presence in its third-largest market. DeepL continues to expand the U.S. team to support strong demand.
Over the past year, DeepL has also significantly expanded its product offerings for businesses. In April 2024, it launched DeepL Write Pro, a writing assistant specifically for business communication based on proprietary Large Language Model (LLM) technology. DeepL also continues to expand the range of languages supported by the Its platform: it recently added Arabic, Korean, and Norwegian, bringing the total number of languages to 32.
“The overwhelming success of DeepL is no longer a secret,” said Danny Rimer, who led the investment on behalf of Index Ventures. It’s a company that’s focused on creating cutting-edge AI products that deliver real value to its customers right away. Jarek and the DeepL team invest equally in research and business growth, both of which are critical to a company’s success.”
The demand for AI solutions from international enterprises is increasing. A recent study conducted by IBM found that 42% are already actively using AI, while 40% are exploring its potential. In this rapidly changing landscape, DeepL is at the forefront of applying AI to transform the language industry, which is currently valued at $67.9 billion and is expected to grow to $95.3 billion by 2028.
Since its inception in 2017, DeepL has become the language AI provider of choice for companies in industries as diverse as manufacturing, legal, retail, healthcare, technology, and professional services. DeepL’s linguistic AI platform is now a critical investment for companies around the world that can solve any communication challenge, from internal communication to customer service to expanding into international markets. Unlike general-purpose AI systems, DeepL’s state-of-the-art translation and writing solutions rely on specialized, language-optimized AI models that not only enable more accurate translations for a variety of use cases, but also present a low risk of producing so-called hallucinations or other forms of misinformation. In professional translation and writing, accuracy is key, and that’s what makes specialized AI models the most reliable solution for language challenges.
DeepL’s language AI platform saves costs and increases efficiency: a 2024 Forrester study revealed that using DeepL delivered a 345% ROI for international companies, reducing translation time by 90% and leading to a 50% reduction in workload. It is therefore an extremely valuable platform for companies that want to increase their turnover and enter new markets faster and at scale.
“At Zendesk, we’ve seen how integrating AI tools can make a difference in the customer experience, and DeepL’s service is a prime example of this,” said Adrian McDermott, chief technology officer (CTO) at Zendesk. Any company, from a startup to a large enterprise, can leverage DeepL’s high-quality translations to thrive globally, reaching potential or existing customers in new ways. Zendesk’s open and flexible platform makes it easy to collaborate, and the tangible results we’ve seen so far from our mutual customers encourage us to continue working with DeepL.”
In the future, DeepL will continue to invest in research and innovation to strengthen its suite of AI communication tools for businesses. It is also intensifying its expansion on the global market and hiring talent in different fields, such as AI research, product development, engineering, sales, marketing, and many more.
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