BLEND (formerly One Hour Translation), a technology-based localization services provider, has completed a $ 10 million round of funding to support the company’s rapid growth. Fortissimo Capital Investment Fund, the current investor, has decided to double its investment in the company and lead the round after a year of business growth and expansion that is also reflected in the company’s new branding. Blend is based on existing assets of One Hour Translation: an advanced technological system based on artificial intelligence, a platform for managing language experts in various fields with over 25,000 translators and personal and professional service. The company leverages all of these to help global brands expand and gain a competitive edge in the various local markets.
Blend provides a wide range of localization services that will enable brands to create an effective local presence in very different markets from each other. Among the services – localization, translation and writing of content, international SEO, localization of media, quality assurance, localization and recorded voice services in a variety of languages. Blend’s localization services are based on a unique understanding of the content, culture and behavior of consumers in each local market and it works with companies in a wide range of industries: gaming, ecommerce, online education, marketing, fintech, medical, regulation and more.
Blend’s technology suite includes unique integrations with neuronal machine translation (NMT) tools such as Google Cloud Translation, Amazon Translate, ModernMT, SYSTRAN, KantanMT, DeepLPro and other NMT engines, along with a wide range of integrations with various translation management systems and interfaces driven by interfaces Customized API.
The company’s rapid translation site will remain active at www.onehourtranslation.com, while localization services for businesses and large companies will be provided through www.getblend.com.
Blend CEO Yair Tel Message: “We are launching Blend to strengthen the ability of medium and large companies to create an effective and distinct local presence and break boundaries in new markets. The success of brands around the world begins with perfect local assimilation. In Rome, act like a Roman. The continued support of our investors and loyal customers allows We need to address the growing demand for localization services and accelerate our growth, organically and primarily through acquisitions. “
Yuval Cohen, Founding Partner of Fortissimo Capital, He noted: “Blend’s impressive global growth, along with the strategic vision led by the new CEO Yair Tal, led us to decide on another investment that will continue to position us as the main investors in Blend. We believe in the company’s advanced solutions and its capabilities to become a market leader in the field. “
Blend was founded in 2008 by Yaron Kaufman, Lior Libman, and Oren Yegev. The company’s headquarters are located in Tel Aviv. The company currently employs over 100 people, half of them in Israel, and the rest in the company’s branches in Los Angeles, Shanghai, Kiev and Bucharest. In the past year, the company has been led by Yair Tal, who has brought with him more than 20 years of experience in global management and business development positions in Israel, the United States, and Hong Kong.
In his last position, Tal served as senior vice president of the fintech company Payoneer and CEO of the Payoneer Enterprise division. For example, Faber, Iron Source, Mae Heritage, WiloClaze, Amazon Web Services and Pioneer, the company is currently expanding its staff to support its global growth.
AI technology vendors use Blend to generate multilingual data for artificial intelligence modeling. Workflows are tailored to each customer’s specific needs in terms of localization challenges, performance metrics and marketing time. The use of Blend’s platform allows customers to leverage the latest AI technology in the world of translation, which has been trained on that client’s specific translation data. The result is shorter marketing time, improved quality and cost reduction.