New York — Breaking news in another country usually appears first on that country’s own media outlets, and if the country isn’t English-speaking that often means waiting for an American reporter to deliver the news. Smartling hopes to change all that.
Smartling, which describes itself as a Translation Delivery Network that makes websites multilingual, announced today that it raised $10 million in a Series B round that will enable the startup to ramp up its localization tools.
Talking with AllThingsD, Smartling’s CEO and founder Jack Welde said he noticed most translation engines use a statistical method to translate foreign languages — meaning words and phrases translate differently across multiple languages depending on the context. Existing online translation services like Google and Yahoo don’t recognize those different interpretations, he added.
Welde also stated that four-fifths of the U.S. population was already on the Internet, compared to 30 percent in China, meaning that, “the growth in Web users is occurring outside the U.S., and language is a key component to taking advantage of it.”
Foursquare, IMVU, SurveyMonkey and Scribd are among Smartling’s current customers, enabling these companies’ apps and websites to quickly and easily add additional language support to their service.
Previous investors Venrock, First Round Capital and U.S. Venture Partners return in this funding around along with IDG Ventures. The New York-based company raised $4 million in funding last year.
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http://tinyurl.com/3evm4bg (AllThingsD)
