{"data":{"type":"company_profile","id":7756,"entity_id":"wefunder:company:7756","attributes":{"canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/unbabel","generated_at":"2026-06-04T13:07:32Z","updated_at":"2026-06-04T05:01:58Z","entity_ids":{"company":"wefunder:company:7756","slug":"wefunder:company_slug:unbabel"},"profile_visibility":{"owner_published":true,"public_search_results":true,"site_search_listed":true,"privacy_mode":"promote","invite_only":false},"provenance":{"source":"wefunder_public_company_profile","as_of":"2026-06-04T13:07:32Z","claims":{"total_amount_raised":{"source":"FrontCompanySummary#amount_raised","last_verified_at":"2026-06-04T05:01:58Z","as_of":"2026-06-04T13:07:32Z","confidence":"high"},"total_investors":{"source":"FrontCompanySummary#number_of_investors","last_verified_at":"2026-06-04T05:01:58Z","as_of":"2026-06-04T13:07:32Z","confidence":"high"},"active_raise_states":{"source":"Fundraise.visible(nil, nil)","last_verified_at":"2025-02-06T01:17:55Z","as_of":"2026-06-04T13:07:32Z","confidence":"high"},"latest_fundraise_state":{"source":"Fundraise.visible(nil, nil).order(funding_started_at)","last_verified_at":"2025-02-06T01:17:55Z","as_of":"2026-06-04T13:07:32Z","confidence":"medium"}}},"company":{"id":7756,"entity_id":"wefunder:company:7756","slug":"unbabel","name":"Unbabel","tagline":"Translation as a service at 1/5 the cost of traditional translators","description":"What we do: Unbabel eliminates language barriers by combining machine and human translation for the best of both worlds —speed and accuracy at a fifth of the price of traditional translators. Unbabel's use of artificial intelligence and crowd-sourced translation help businesses expand globally.Why it's a big deal: 75% of the world does not speak English. Translation services are essential for companies that want to build a global brand, but it's difficult to find a viable solution for online content. Machines are too rigid to detect the nuances of human speech, and humans are just too slow.Unbabel solves this problem by marrying human skill with machine-efficiency. Customers send in content which is first auto-translated by Unbabel's software, then refined by two human translators before it's sent back to the customer in as little as 10 minutes. This leads to the speed of a computer translation refined by a human touch, offering customers a reliable and quick solution to building their global brand. No wonder Unbabel raised $1.5M in their seed round; they're offering a translation service unlike any other.","story":"The idea for the company that hopes to break down the world’s language barriers was hatched around a fire after a day of surfing in southern Portugal. Unbabel’s founders talked about a friend’s problem: when renting a local house to international tourists, he either had to stumble through using a rusty language or hope for the best with a flawed online translator. “It seems kind of silly that in the 21st Century we still don’t have a computer that is able to translate,” says Vasco Pedro, Unbabel co-founder and CEO. “We realized that they’re close but they aren’t quite there yet. If we just get human to help the machine complete the translation, we could make the human so much more productive and produce things that are human quality and sound natural, not robotic, and don’t have mistakes.” Unbabel’s five founders aren’t your typical beach bums—they have two Ph.D.s in natural language processing between them, along with extensive knowledge of machine learning and artificial intelligence. That background means they’re equipped to revolutionize the growing translation industry—$34 billion was spent on language services last year, Pedro says. How it works Unbabel combines the speed and efficiency of machine translation with the quality of human translators. First, a text—13 languages are supported so far— is run through machine translation, then a community of both bilinguals and professional translators edit the output of the machine, making sure it sounds natural and is error-free. Translators can work on their smart phones—a key feature that will attract a large community of editors, even in parts of the world where laptops aren’t widespread, Pedro says. “Typically the industry works in a way that the human does 100% of the work,” he says. “We use artificial intelligence to do 95% of the work, and then the human does the remaining 5% of the work. And since the human does 5% of the work, the costs go down significantly.” Unbabel charges clients by the word with prices that are five to 10 times cheaper than direct competitor’s. Unbabel is faster, too—traditional services deliver translations in days, while Unbabel aims to finish in minutes, Pedro says. Translators are paid by the hour and get to skip common time-wasters like formatting, bidding for projects and negotiating with clients. Currently, users can request translation through Unbabel’s website, integrate the API into their workflow or submit through email—forwarding messages to be translated to a language-specific address (i.e. fr@translate.unbabel.com for French). Unbabel plans to roll out plug-ins for platforms like Zendesk, Evernote and MailChimp to make it even easier for companies to communicate. Another future move? Shifting pricing to a subscription model where companies pay a monthly fee for unlimited amounts of a specific translation service—so web content can be updated automatically and customer service concerns can be handled seamlessly. The founders see endless potential for the service to help businesses enter new markets and compete globally. It’s already having an impact—language tutoring service Cambly has used Unbabel for customer service and blog launches, while recipe site Yummly has used it to translate recipes from bloggers around the world. The Lisbon-based team envisions their service changing the way people communicate on every level—we will be able to read news from other countries, comment on Facebook posts written in other languages and even complete academic research that wasn’t possible before, says co-founder and CTO João Graça. “We can actually make a difference in the world,” CEO Pedro says. “’If you’re not in the West, you’re much more sensitive to what different languages prevent you from doing and what information you aren’t able to access. If we can do this then it’s really something that is almost magical. It’s a little like the universal communicator from ‘Star Trek.’ You can talk to people, you can engage with folks all over the world, without even realizing they don’t speak your language. I think that’s pretty amazing.”","website":"https://unbabel.co/","total_amount_raised":23800,"total_investors":28,"is_funded":true,"is_active":true,"related_urls":["https://wefunder.com/unbabel","https://unbabel.co/"]},"media":{"share_image_url":"https://uploads.wefunder.com/uploads/company/cover_photo_version4/7756/retina__V4_Header.jpg","logo_url":"https://uploads.wefunder.com/uploads/company/logo/7756/large_Profile.png","cover_photo_url":"https://uploads.wefunder.com/uploads/company/cover_photo_version4/7756/standard__V4_Header.jpg"},"links":{"company_url":"https://unbabel.co/","twitter_url":"http://twitter.com/theunbabel","facebook_url":"http://facebook.com/unbabel"},"highlights":[],"quick_facts":[{"index":1,"claim_id":"claim-fact-1","value":"40 pre-launch paying customers"},{"index":2,"claim_id":"claim-fact-2","value":"15% weekly growth"},{"index":3,"claim_id":"claim-fact-3","value":"$1.5M raised in seed round"},{"index":4,"claim_id":"claim-fact-4","value":"Community of translators based worldwide"},{"index":5,"claim_id":"claim-fact-5","value":"Specific products for Zendesk and Mailchimp available"}],"team":[{"id":29556,"entity_id":"wefunder:company_role:29556","role":"founder","name":"Bruno Silva","title":"Lead Designer","bio":"Bruno was a UX and interface designer at Dezine and several other companies. He has worked as a 3D art director for Ludicartes.","avatar_url":"https://uploads.wefunder.com/uploads/company_role/custom_photo/29556/square_Bruno_.jpg?1432260301","linkedin_url":"http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bruno-prezado-silva/8/a02/b26","related_urls":[]},{"id":29557,"entity_id":"wefunder:company_role:29557","user_entity_id":"wefunder:user:26959","role":"founder","name":"Sofia Pessanha","title":"CMO","bio":"Sofia founded Beta-i and solar power plant management company ActualSun. She was a director at the Founder Institute.","avatar_url":"https://uploads.wefunder.com/uploads/company_role/custom_photo/29557/square_sofia_.jpg?1432260017","profile_url":"https://wefunder.com/sofia.pessanha","linkedin_url":"http://www.linkedin.com/in/sofiapessanha","related_urls":["https://wefunder.com/sofia.pessanha"]},{"id":29559,"entity_id":"wefunder:company_role:29559","role":"founder","name":"João Graca","title":"CTO","bio":"A computer science PhD, Joao has several AI and machine learning publications under his name. He organized the Lisbon Machine Learning Summer School.","avatar_url":"https://uploads.wefunder.com/uploads/company_role/custom_photo/29559/square_joao_.jpg?1432260180","linkedin_url":"http://www.linkedin.com/pub/jo%C3%A3o-gra%C3%A7a/1/453/544","related_urls":[]},{"id":29571,"entity_id":"wefunder:company_role:29571","user_entity_id":"wefunder:user:26980","role":"founder","name":"Vasco Calais Pedro","title":"CEO","bio":"Vasco founded design company Dezine and sharing platform Bueda. He has a PhD in Language Technologies from Carnegie Mellon University.","avatar_url":"https://uploads.wefunder.com/uploads/company_role/custom_photo/29571/square_vasco_.jpg?1432259876","profile_url":"https://wefunder.com/vasco.calais.pedro.2","personal_url":"","related_urls":["https://wefunder.com/vasco.calais.pedro.2",""]},{"id":29558,"entity_id":"wefunder:company_role:29558","role":"founder","name":"Hugo Silva","title":"Front End and Mobile Developer","bio":"Hugo has worked as a web developer for several companies. He was frontend developer at Dezine, and has several original software projects to his name.","avatar_url":"https://uploads.wefunder.com/uploads/company_role/custom_photo/29558/square_hugo_.jpg?1432260426","linkedin_url":"http://www.linkedin.com/in/hugofvs","related_urls":[]}],"featured_investors":[],"investor_memos":[],"tab_counts":{"posts":1,"ask_questions":11,"featured_investors":0,"faq_entries":1},"active_fundraises":[{"id":5116,"entity_id":"wefunder:fundraise:5116","state":"successful","offering_type":"506(c)","funding_type":"note","structure":"safe","security_type":"equity","currency":"USD","testing_the_waters":false,"min_purchase":100,"max_purchase":9,"funding_target":500000.0,"funding_started_at":"2014-03-25T22:03:48Z","funding_closed_at":"2014-05-22T21:20:48Z","auto_close_at":"2014-05-22T21:20:48Z"}],"latest_fundraise":{"id":5116,"entity_id":"wefunder:fundraise:5116","state":"successful","offering_type":"506(c)","structure":"safe","testing_the_waters":false,"can_invest_now":false,"funding_started_at":"2014-03-25T22:03:48Z","funding_closed_at":"2014-05-22T21:20:48Z","terms":{"eb":null,"nb":"$7M","txt":"valuation cap"}},"recent_posts":[{"id":155,"entity_id":"wefunder:feed_item:155","type":"FeedItem::Update","visibility":"public","preview":"Our 40+ customers include AirBNB, Google, \u0026 Pinterest!","published_at":"2014-04-09T17:50:22Z","author_name":"Nick Tommarello","url":"/feed/155","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/feed/155"}],"q_and_a":[{"id":3082,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:3082","question":"Can you publish an update to investors on your progress in 2015? And what your goals are for 2016?","author_name":"Shelley Gould","votes":1,"created_at":"2015-12-24T04:58:16Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/unbabel#question-3082","answers":[]},{"id":1625,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:1625","question":"Where can I see your Business Plan","author_name":"Martin Nef","votes":1,"created_at":"2014-03-31T19:53:44Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/unbabel#question-1625","answers":[]},{"id":1609,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:1609","question":"How's the Zendesk - Unbabel partnership going?","author_name":"Terrence Yang","votes":1,"created_at":"2014-03-26T18:40:58Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/unbabel#question-1609","answers":[{"id":1614,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:1614","answer":"We have al alpha version of the plugin and will be rolling it out to a few select customers.","author_name":"Vasco Calais Pedro","votes":0,"created_at":"2014-03-26T21:51:36Z"}]},{"id":17126,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:17126","question":"I saw that Unbabel Close closed a series b for 23 million. Can you tell us at what valuation that was?","author_name":"Samuel Schwartz","votes":0,"created_at":"2018-01-12T17:12:54Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/unbabel#question-17126","answers":[]},{"id":7370,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:7370","question":"Hello, My name is miss laura, i saw your profile and it drew my attention to write to you. I would like you to communicate me through my e-mail address (sgt.lauraralph2@gmail.com) laura","author_name":"Neel Murthy","votes":0,"created_at":"2017-01-03T18:30:19Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/unbabel#question-7370","answers":[]},{"id":2430,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:2430","question":"What specific languages are currently available and is Chinese included?","author_name":"David Ma","votes":0,"created_at":"2015-05-11T15:08:58Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/unbabel#question-2430","answers":[]},{"id":2396,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:2396","question":"Hi. I would like to know if you are interested in having new investment. Thanks, Jorge","author_name":"Jorge Marques","votes":0,"created_at":"2015-05-03T18:44:54Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/unbabel#question-2396","answers":[]},{"id":1649,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:1649","question":"Hello, in your slide 5 \"Use Case 2\", the translation to Chinese is wrong for the phrase \"as soon as it ships\". So that brings up the question of how do you make sure your editors are doing a correct job. Secondly, could you leverage google translate?","author_name":"Li Li","votes":0,"created_at":"2014-04-12T20:48:52Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/unbabel#question-1649","answers":[]},{"id":1632,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:1632","question":"Guys, is theren no iOS/iPhone App?","author_name":"Angelo Zullino","votes":0,"created_at":"2014-04-05T21:27:05Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/unbabel#question-1632","answers":[]},{"id":1631,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:1631","question":"Guys, I am wondering what is your long-term goal here. Are you interested in remaining in direct contact with larger audiences? Or as you models/machines built more and more experience, will you depart from human editors, at least partly in areas where X-to-Y language translation becomes easier? Thanks!","author_name":"Radu Ursu","votes":0,"created_at":"2014-04-05T21:01:11Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/unbabel#question-1631","answers":[]},{"id":1621,"entity_id":"wefunder:comment:1621","question":"How do you address information security within the technology?","author_name":"Margaret Grant","votes":0,"created_at":"2014-03-29T21:01:44Z","canonical_url":"https://wefunder.com/unbabel#question-1621","answers":[]}],"faq":[{"question":"How's the Zendesk - Unbabel partnership going?","answer":"We have al alpha version of the plugin and will be rolling it out to a few select customers."}]}}}