AI language translator startup DeepL raises $300M at $2 billion valuation, making it Germany’s most valuable AI company

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) startups continue to see an influx of funding as investors look for the next OpenAI. The latest to ride the AI funding wave is German AI language translator startup DeepL. The company announced Wednesday it’s now valued at $2 billion (1.85 billion euros)  in a funding round led by investor Index Ventures.

The latest round makes DeepL Germany’s most valued AI startup, according to a report from the German business daily Handelsblatt. The defense startup Helsing is in second place at 1.7 billion euros value, while the Heidelberg AI company Aleph Alpha is valued at around 500 million euros

Alongside the funding, the startup also announced it has secured a $300 million investment to accelerate its research and product innovation, increase hiring, as well as double down on the expansion of its global market footprint.

Founded in 2019 by Jaroslaw Kutylowski in Germany, the company initially emerged as Linguee, an online dictionary. Kutylowski’s vision, however, extended far beyond traditional lexicography. He aimed to develop a neural machine translation (NMT) system capable of delivering translations surpassing conventional statistical machine translation (SMT) quality.

“Inbound is great, but we want to develop a stronger relationship with our customers,” he said. “We’re working hard on developing a better outbound function, because inbound is only going to get you so far. At some point, you have to start solving the problems together with your customers. The company’s transforming quite a bit into this enterprise direction, which is complicated and interesting for a research based company.”