“There is a special kind of beauty that exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.”
This quote is attributed to French philosopher and poetics-minded Gaston Bachelard, and he wasn’t wrong – still isn’t, if you ask me – because language truly can be a beautiful thing. It’s a deep-running root of cross-generational, cross-background, and cross-industry communication. Language can be wielded to cause widespread harm or bring about long-sought unity. Even those with multi-sensory impairment can still unsheathe language and make it their own as they connect with others.
The key is – as with most of life’s invaluable tools – how it’s harnessed; ideally, for the promise of progress, of safety, and of overall greater engagement yet to be experienced.
That’s how I’ve written about language before, and I’m a bona fide linguistics nerd so I most certainly plan on sticking to it.
Coincidentally, this is also how I’ve previously written about developments from the unique team at Language I/O (or LIO, for short).
And today, we’ve got more to share.
When I last covered LIO on our Future of Work News site (read the full story from August of 2023 here), this U.S.-based provider of multilingual customer solutions had announced a successful $8 million Series A1 funding round. The goal of this was simple – radically expand LIO’s ML platform to integrate deeper GenAI into its available services. LIO already supports more than 150 languages, helping other teams break business-world language barriers (be it for SMEs or full-blown multinational corporations).
At the time, LIO CEO and founder Heather Morgan Shoemaker described how the recent GenAI boom “has driven groundbreaking innovation,” and that funding would allow LIO “to harness generative intelligence to develop superior, real-time translation capabilities for enterprises.” (Sounds solid to us, especially since one Market Research Future (MRFR) study points to growth in the chatbot and translation services market to reach $47.21 billion by 2030, representing a CAGR of 2.6%.)
This all said, LIO has kept to the proverbial grindstone since my last story – that brings us to a brand-new announcement.
Earlier this morning, LIO announced having raised another $5 million. Fundraising this time around was led by Boston-based Gutbrain Ventures. With more funds on hand, LIO is poised to a.) continue improving the accuracy of its proprietary translation services, and b.) back other R&D efforts in the multilingual chatbot space.
“This funding adds great fuel to the LIO’s recent revenue growth,” stated Bob Davoli, General Partner of Gutbrain Ventures and current LIO investor, “and will allow the company to focus and execute on their AI roadmap while scaling their go-to-market team.”
Naturally, LIO’s Shoemaker stands in agreement with Davoli.
“We are seeing rapid growth and didn’t want to slow down,” she explained. “Our success continues as we address increasing demand for AI to automate multilingual customer support. We have been the vendor of choice for some of the world’s most recognizable brands, and we’ll continue building on our industry-leading efficiency.”
Edited by
Greg Tavarez
