Transfluent has announced it has received $1 million in Angel funding to relocate to New York and support their Singapore office. The company provides human-powered translation services with a quick turnaround, making it ideal for companies who need social media accounts in many languages, apps localized, and other tasks. I’ve learned over and over again that Google Translate and other automated services can only get you so far before it spits out some strange poetry, so human powered is still the only professional way to operate in several language markets.
Transfluent employs 15 000 freelancers and supports 60 languages. The company prides itself in fast turnaround times, allowing translations to appear in “near real time.”
Recently Transfluent has released its API for Apps, which allows automatic translation of App builds. They point out on their website that minor languages generally have less content, providing a market opportunity.
I suppose this funding news wasn’t a huge surprise to attendees of this past month’s Startup Helsinki Meetup, where CEO Jani Penttinen discussed raising funding on a “Million Dollar Panel” along with Appgyver’s Antti Hannula and Grey Area’s Ville Vesterinen.
Penttinen wasn’t willing to discuss the details of his funding round, but did talk about the best practices of raising funding from Angels, and did note he was surprised how much demand Transfluent saw in the US market.
