Linguana AI Dubbing Startup for YouTubers Raised $8.5M: Pitch Deck

A startup that makes use of AI translation expertise to make new YouTube channels for creators concentrating on totally different locales has snagged $8.5 million in seed funding.

Linguana is led by cofounder and CEO Yuval Tal, an Israeli serial entrepreneur who beforehand based monetary companies agency Payoneer and e-commerce firm Borderfree. Linguana will use the funds to put money into expertise and onboard extra creators, Tal instructed Enterprise Insider.

Linguana already works with lots of of YouTubers for whom it generates 10,000 video translations — and lots of of hundreds of {dollars} of recent income — every month. It is searching for established creators with greater than 1 million views a month who deal with evergreen topics.

It is one in all many startups trying to harness AI to assist media companies scale. Dubbing particularly is a sizzling subject within the creator financial system, with the likes of MrBeast championing the instruments.

YouTube unveiled its personal auto-dubbing options in December, that are presently accessible on a restricted foundation.

However Tal contended that creating stand-alone channels leads to higher viewership. It permits for translated thumbnails and video descriptions, in addition to remark sections that are not clouded by totally different languages, he mentioned.

Linguana’s AI expertise captures the tone of creators’ voices, and the corporate works with human reviewers to confirm its work.

CMO Jonny Metal instructed BI that Linguana’s objective was “final authenticity” in making creators sound like they’re talking within the totally different languages themselves. He mentioned the corporate had acquired suggestions from creators that it had a “increased high quality of accuracy” than Google’s auto-dubbing instruments.

Linguana does not cost up entrance. Relatively, it shares revenues with creators on the backend in a 50/50 cut up. Tal described it as “extra income with out doing something.”

After signing an settlement, Linguana good points entry to a creator’s channel. It chooses which movies to dub, removes any model integrations, after which publishes at an optimum time, together with translated thumbnails and video descriptions.

It additionally combs via creators’ catalogs to choose movies which might be most probably to resonate in different areas.

“You should do the crystal ball of what movies to place the place,” Tal mentioned.

One creator accomplice is gardener Charles Dowding, who mentioned his six localized channels at the moment are seeing 250,000 views a month. For some worldwide creators in Russia and Brazil, the place advert charges might be decrease, localization has yielded “life-changing” earnings, Tal mentioned.

Angel buyers who contributed to the spherical embrace Oren Zeev, Zohar Gilon, Eyal Waldman, and Oren Dobronsky. The early-stage enterprise agency 2LVC additionally invested.

Learn the pitch deck that Linguana used to boost its seed spherical under.

Be aware: Some slides have been redacted in order that the deck might be shared publicly.