Finding the right vendor for mass scale language translations can be confusing for content owners. Clearly, in the matters of translation, quality is key. Cloudwords, startup founded by ex-Salesforce.com employees, has quietly launched a cloud-based application that helps companies improve their translation process and find the right translation vendor.
The startup, which launched in mid-February, allows customers to find vendors that will translate any type of content, including marketing, website, documentation and product, from any language to any language. Cloudwords goes beyond just connecting customers and vendors.
The application actually stores and manages a customers prior translated content in the form of a database, commonly known as Translation Memory, helping them improve the quality of their translations, while reducing the time and cost to produce translated material.
In terms of connecting clients to vendors, Cloudwords levels the playing field through total transparency. Buyers and vendors share all the same information and the starup ensures that customers are getting exactly what they want most in the transaction. Buyers want knowledge of how prices between vendors compare, and a central place to view and manage all of their translation projects. Vendors want a steady flow of project opportunities. The Cloudwords Community of thousands of translation vendors are globally distributed across Europe, Asia, Americas and Australia
As co-founder Michael Meinhardt tells us, what Salesforce.com did for managing the sales process, Cloudwords will do for managing the translation process.
And the startup raised $3 million in Series A funding from individuals including, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com Founding CTO Dave Moellenhoff, Current Salesforce CTO Craig Weissman, and CEO of Okta Todd McKinnon. Early customers include SuccessFactors, Veeva Systems, Calypso Technology and Coupa Software.
Meinhardt says that the translation Industry is a $20 Billion market and growing at 15 percent each year, which shows that there is indeed a market for a distributed marketplace like Cloudwords.