全球机器翻译市场观察|德国机器翻译公司Lengoo获得660万美元A轮融资
Germany-based language service provider (LSP) Lengoo has raised EUR 6m (USD 6.6m) in Series A funding. The funding round, completed in August 2019, was led by Zurich-based venture capital firm Redalpine, with other follow-on investors and angels participating.
总部位于德国的语言服务提供商(LSP) Lengoo 获得了600万欧元(约合660万美元)A轮融资。该轮融资于2019年8月完成，由总部位于苏黎世的风险投资公司 Redalpine 领投，其他跟进投资者和天使投资人跟投。
Lengoo develops a translation workflow that combines neural machine translation (NMT) with human post-editing, resembling the operational models of tech-forward LSPs Lilt and Unbabel.
Lengoo 开发了一种结合神经机器翻译(NMT)和人工译后编辑的翻译工作流程，类似于Lilt 和 Unbabel 的操作模式。
The Series A is Lengoo’s fourth funding round to date. Lengoo has now raised EUR 7.94m (USD 8.7m), of which USD 0.75m came from an EU grant in April 2018. Slator contacted Lengoo Co-founder and CMO Alexander Gigga for comment on the latest funding round. Gigga declined to disclose the company’s current valuation.
此次A轮融资是该公司的第4次融资。Lengoo现在已经筹集了794万欧元(约合870万美元) ，其中75万美元来自2018年4月欧盟的赠款。Slator 联系了 Lengoo 的联合创始人兼首席营销官 Alexander Gigga，请他对最新一轮融资发表评论。Gigga拒绝透露该公司目前的估值。
Post-editing for the Enterprise
企业版译后编辑
Lengoo was founded by Christopher Kränzler (CEO), Philipp Koch-Büttner (COO), and Alexander Gigga (CMO) in 2014. Prior to Lengoo, Gigga “was working for a big US consultancy as a localization manager and witnessed firsthand how the translation industry was, and in big parts still is, highly inefficient,” he said.
2014年，克里斯托弗 · 克尔 · 恩兹勒(CEO)、菲利普 · 科赫-博特纳(COO)和亚历山大 · 吉加(CMO)共同创立了Lengoo公司。他表示，在 Lengoo 之前，吉加“曾在美国一家大型咨询公司担任本地化经理，亲眼目睹了翻译行业在很大程度上仍然较为低效的现的现状。”
Looking to eliminate efficiencies, Lengoo’s original offering centered around automating project management tasks through an online platform. The company then introduced machine learning for smart outsourcing.
为了降低效率，Lengoo 最初的产品集中在通过在线平台自动化项目管理任务。该公司随后引入了机器学习，用于智能外包。
Although Lengoo was founded before the advent of neural machine translation (NMT), the company quickly integrated it once it became available. “Having completed our first financing round, we shifted to an AI-first strategy, automating the translation process itself. We started developing NMT technology in 2016 and received an EU grant to turn NMT fit to perform expert level translations in 2018,” Gigga told Slator.
尽管 Lengoo 在神经机器翻译(NMT)出现之前就已经成立了，但是该公司很快就将其整合到了一起。“在完成第一轮融资后，我们转向 AI优先的策略，使翻译过程自动化。我们在2016年开始开发 NMT 技术，并且在2018年得到了欧盟的资助，将 NMT 转化为专家级别的精准翻译。
Lengoo’s proprietary platform is now geared toward streamlining the post-editing workflow. Yet Gigga believes that “post-editing of neural machine translated output is just a transition phase,” speculating that “the future of translation will see true interaction between humans and machines and move way past a sequential process, where one part completes one step and the second performs another.”
现在，Lengoo 的专有平台正致力于简化译后编辑工作流程。然而，吉加认为，“神经机器翻译输出的译后编辑只是一个过渡阶段，”他推测，“翻译的未来将看到人类和机器之间真正的互动，远远超过一个连续的过程，一方完成一个步骤，另一方完成另一个步骤。”
Lengoo focuses “on traditional B2B enterprise selling,” said Gigga, and the company has made inroads into this customer base in Europe. No mean feat since B2B customers are often loyal to incumbent providers.
吉加说，Lengoo 专注于“传统的 B2B 企业销售” ，该公司已经进入了欧洲的这一客户群。这绝非易事，因为 B2B 客户通常忠于现有供应商。
One upside to this market is that Lengoo’s B2B customers “all have a professional translation process in place,” Giga said, “and, hence, can provide us with their past translations in a structured way.” Lengoo is then able to use the vast amount of data contained in customers’ translation memories (TMs) to train their machine translation engines.
这个市场的一个好处是，Lengoo 的 B2B 客户“都有专业的翻译流程，”吉加说，“因此，他们可以以一种结构化的方式为我们提供他们过去的译文。” 然后，Lengoo 能够使用客户翻译记忆(TMs)中包含的大量数据来训练他们的机器翻译引擎。
Sourcing Talent & Securing Investment
寻找人才和确保投资
According to Gigga, the fragmented Germany market is “the perfect market to start a language company” and its location offers “a great opportunity for rapid growth.”
吉加表示，分散的德国市场是“开办一家语言公司的完美市场” ，其地理位置为“快速增长提供了巨大机遇”
Asked about the talent crunch for machine learning and AI talent, most pronounced in rising tech centers like Berlin, Gigga agreed that “Berlin has become a vibrant tech hub attracting top talent,” adding that Lengoo attracts engineers into the business by providing them with the opportunity to work on real-world problems.
当被问及机器学习和人工智能人才的人才紧缺问题时，吉加同意“柏林已经成为一个充满活力的吸引顶尖人才的科技中心” ，并补充说，Lengoo 公司通过为工程师提供解决现实问题的机会，吸引他们进入这一行业。
Redalpine, the lead investor in the USD 6.6m round, is focused on “highly scalable European start-ups,” according to their website. Meanwhile, the participation of Lengoo’s two follow-on investors, Creathor Ventures and Piton Capital, “shows that we are on the right path,” Gigga said.
Redalpine 是这轮融资660万美元的主要投资者，该投资机构专注于“具有高度可扩展性的欧洲初创企业”。与此同时，Lengoo 的两个后续投资者 Creathor Ventures 和 Piton Capital 的参与，“表明我们走在正确的道路上，”吉加说。
Lengoo plans to invest the funds raised in “scaling our enterprise sales team to handle the great demand,” Gigga said. They also plan to add features to the platform and to continue research into machine translation.
Lengoo 公司计划将募集到的资金投资于“扩大我们的企业销售团队，以应对巨大的市场需求，”吉加说。他们还计划为平台增加功能，并继续投入研究机器翻译。
About Lengoo
Lengoo公司简介
lengoo powers the future of translation. The language tech company automatically customizes neural machine translation systems for enterprise customers, who can use their service to have professional translations made in over 400 language combinations. Headquartered in Berlin, the company was founded in 2014 in Karlsruhe by Philipp Koch-Büttner, Christopher Kränzler, and Alexander Gigga. In 2016 lengoo participated in the Techstars accelerator program in Berlin and was awarded with the Deloitte Fast 50 Award in 2018 as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in Germany.
Lengoo为翻译的未来提供动力。这家语言技术公司为企业客户自动定制神经机器翻译系统，客户可以使用他们的服务进行超过400个语言对的专业翻译。公司总部位于柏林，于2014年在卡尔斯鲁厄由 Philipp koch-b ttner，Christopher kr nzler 和 Alexander Gigga 创立。2016年，lengoo 参与了柏林的 Techstars 加速器项目，并作为德国发展最快的公司之一入围2018年德勤高增长50强。
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原文来自Slator和Lengoo官网，中文由机器翻译观察翻译。获取中文转载请联系后台。