Rob Vandenberg - Lingotek
Provo-based Lingotek, which develops technology focused on collaborative language translation recently received a strategic investment from In-Q-Tel, a CIA owned venture capital firm. We spoke with LingoTek’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Rob Vandenberg to find out the details behind this investment and the direction of the company moving forward.
Silicon Slopes: What is the history behind LingoTek? How did it start and who came up with the idea?
Rob Vandenberg: Lingotek first raised professional capital in March 2006. The first year was spent building v1 of the software. From the beginning, Lingotek has focused on computer-assisted translation (CAT). While CAT tools for translation have existed for many years, Lingotek has focused on building a platform that brings the translation process together while exposing CAT tools as appropriate. The idea for a web-based CAT platform will continue to evolve. Our clients have different needs but one thing remains common; the need to bring content owners, project managers and translators together in an efficient translation process.
Silicon Slopes:Can you describe the translation tools you have developed and how they work?
Rob Vandenberg: Lingotek's focus is bringing Collaborative Translation solutions in one unified platform. We have developed proprietary language technologies including translation memory tools, dictionaries and translation workflow tools. We have also integrated third-party technology such as machine translation to assist in the translation process. All of these technologies work in a similar fashion in that they present resources to the translator as they are progressing through a document. Our translation environment focuses on a single sentence or sentence fragment and presents related content in a resource pane. This is done asynchronously so the translator can read the source segment, begin translation and have resources presented as they are matched. The workflow focus follows three important principles: (1) distributed source content (2) capture translated content for the current project and future projects and (3) track translation progress.
Lingotek helps companies capture, grow and re-use their linguistic assets.
Silicon Slopes: How is your approach to translation different then your competitors?
Rob Vandenberg: Currently, the two key differentiators from our competitors are that our tool is Web-based and all translations are centralized and stored in one gigantic data warehouse for reuse. Competitor’s tools segment data into different warehouses, thus eliminating some of the possible matches for future use.
The next 12 months, our product development is focused on extending the collaborative translation platform to enable non-professional translators to contribute to translation projects for which they have affinity. Lingotek believes that social networks will soon extend to become social production around shared interests and affinity.
Silicon Slopes: Do you offer the actual translations? Are you leveraging the huge amount of able translators in the Utah area or do you focus only on the tools to facilitate the translation?
Rob Vandenberg: Yes, Lingotek will translate any content into and from any language. Give us a call. Our translation services have the unique advantage of leveraging our Collaborative Translation technology. We offer a high quality, fair priced translation service with unparalleled customer service.
Traditional professional translations are done “in country” meaning that native speakers do the translation. Our translation services team has available more than 2,500 translators around the globe.
We are focused on technology, and believe that also provides a competitive advantage to our services. As we continue to roll out our products, we believe that translators in any area of the world, including Utah, will have more opportunity to participate in the translation process.
Silicon Slopes: You are currently operating without a CEO. Any plans to bring one on board soon?
Rob Vandenberg: The company is currently managed by Aaron Davis, CTO, Jeff Labrum, CFO, and Rob Vandenberg VP of Sales/Marketing. We each have very different but complimentary skill sets, but each of us are experienced in growing technology companies. We refer to the structure as the Office of the President or OTP. We work tremendously well together as a team and are currently focused on execution and will worry about a CEO at the right time when the need arises.
Silicon Slopes: You recently received funding from a CIA venture capital firm, IN-Q-Tel. This seems like a strong indication of the significance and potential of your technology.
Rob Vandenberg: The technical due diligence process was extremely rigorous. It was much more extensive than a typical venture capitalist would perform. Various agencies within the Intelligence community focused on the core Natural Language Processing capabilities of our software and different use cases. This is truly a credit to our outstanding engineering team and Aaron Davis, our CTO.
In-Q-Tel reviews about 600 investments per year and invests in 2 percent of those they review. We’re part of an elite group and are very pleased to have partnered with In-Q-Tel.
Silicon Slopes: Because of their affiliation with the CIA do they place any type of restrictions on who you can sell your software to?
Rob Vandenberg: Although, In-Q-Tel is affiliated with the CIA, a critical criteria for investment was that Lingotek had a strong commercial offering. They want Lingotek to be a successful investment both for the return on investment, as well as the ongoing development of Collaborative Translation technology.
Silicon Slopes: Can you map out for us where the money from this Series B round will be allocated?
Rob Vandenberg: The funds will enable us to accelerate research and development of the Collaborative Translation software and grow our sales and marketing teams to increase our distribution.
Silicon Slopes: With an increasingly global economy, your software seems to fit the needs of all types of organizations and industries. Where are you focusing your initial marketing efforts?
Rob Vandenberg: We have a strong partner in In-Q-Tel and thus will continue to focus a portion of our sales and marketing on government agencies. Our Collaborative Translation software can make a big impact in the Intelligence community. We’re also advancing the ideas of sharing linguistic assets between agencies to foster collaboration within the Government.
The bulk of our sales and marketing efforts are focused on content owners around the world. You are spot on with the global economy comment and language is currently a limiting factor in cross-border commerce. We’re focused on reducing barriers to commerce and expanding market opportunities for companies.
