Translating an idea into profit
US fund PARC Partners has acquired Greek startup Transifex, the latter announced yesterday, with the Greek translation software development company changing hands for an eight-digit figure, as Kathimerini understands.
“We see a clear opportunity to grow the business three to five times over the next five to seven years. This can only be done through investments in both product innovations and customer outreach, or through the acquisition of other enterprises,” Transifex founder Dimitris Glezos tells Kathimerini. He refuses to comment on Kathimerini information about a takeover price of $30-40 million.
“Transifex will remain the same category-leading product built and managed by the same team. This is why the staff is expected to grow from 55 to 70 people by the end of the year,” he adds.
After the takeover he will leave the company’s management and be succeeded by the heads of the fund, Chris Reese and Tony Pilnik. Glezos will remain as a consultant and his future plans concern investments in Greek startups.
The two heads of PARC Partners had planned to invest in a company with revenues of between $10-100 million, and ended up at Transifex. They both expressed their excitement about the technology and the vision of the software-creating company, aiming to render “every part of the software and content available in every language.”
Transifex was founded in Patra in 2009 and has offices in Maroussi, northern Athens, and San Francisco. The software it has developed helps other businesses to translate their products automatically into hundreds of foreign languages. It renders translation more efficient and reduces the cost for customers, creating a service that instantly translates content by embedding a single code into a website.
The company has 1,400 clients in 70 countries, including major tech firms such as Viber, Klarna, Strava, HubSpot, Quora etc.
In the last couple of years, when a large share of enterprises increased their digital services, making it necessary to translate their service content into many languages, Transifex posted an increase in its fundamentals: “Last year revenues rose 35% and we increased our staff 20%,” says Glezos.
