Cloudwords, a service that connects translation vendors with content owners, has raised $3 million in Series A funding from several Salesforce executives and founders, including CEO Marc Benioff, founding CTO Dave Moellenhoff, current CTO Craig Weissman. Todd McKinnon, co-founder and CEO of cloud management service Okta, also contributed.
Probably not coincidentally, Cloudwords CTO Scott Yancey worked at Salesforce for nearly a decade before moving on to create this new startup with fellow co-founder and current CEO Michael Meinhardt.
I had a chance to catch up with both founders over the phone on Thursday afternoon to learn more about Cloudwords.
“Our goal is to become the Salesforce.com for the translation industry,” said Meinhardt, right off the bat.
Clarifying the analogy, Yancey explained that, in its early days, Salesforce helped clueless small companies define the sales process. Today, in an increasingly globalized market, small to medium-sized businesses know they need to translate their content and services, but they find it needlessly difficult to match translation vendors that meet their needs.
To that end, Cloudwords provides a marketplace for any of the 20,000 translation vendors worldwide to bid for projects from content owners. No matter whether it’s a website, a stack of documents, actual products or any other kind of translatable content, it qualifies as a project worth submitting to Cloudwords.
Meinhardt also made a point to say that Cloudwords distinguishes itself from services like Elance, which help content owners find freelance translators.
The company just launched two months ago, but has already picked up positive feedback from its earliest customers, like SuccessFactors, Veeva Systems, Calypso Technology and Coupa Software.
Both Meinhardt and Yancey insist that this is a huge market, estimated at about $20 billion and growing 15 percent every year.
“The world is getting smaller,” explained CTO Scott Yancey. “As a result, translation is only getting bigger and bigger, but it’s a highly fragmented industry.”
At the moment, Cloudwords remains laser-focused on reaching out to small and medium-sized software companies that need translation work done. As time goes on, the company has larger ambitions of entering new verticals and industries, as well as bringing its service to enterprise-grade clients.
The new funding will be used to expand the Cloudwords team and drive sales.
Amish Jani, Founder and Partner at FirstMark, joined the company's Board of Directors
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Based in San Francisco and backed by individuals who gave birth to cloud computing, including Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, Cloudwords is poised to revolutionize the translation industry. Our team is comprised of individuals who have worked at Salesforce.com, NetSuite, Yahoo, Cisco Systems and various translation vendors– and all of us are passionate about empowering customers with tools that make their lives easier.
Cloudwords is not a translation vendor or Localization Service Provider (LSP); rather, it is a Translation Management Platform that enables the customer to select and interact with the translation vendor, and centrally manage all translation projects.
At Cloudwords, we believe that the innovative way to buy translation services begins with transparency. The current approach pits buyer and vendor against each other. The vendor holds all of the information and the buyer becomes suspicious, often times resulting in both parties being dissatisfied with the experience.
Cloudwords levels the playing field through total transparency. Buyers and vendors share all the same information and we make sure that they 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. Cloudwords delivers to both.
In essence, Cloudwords is the internet's first translation specific marketplace designed to help the customer navigate the proverbial "black box" of translation. In order to join our network, a translation vendor must have at least 5 customer references and be accredited and in good standing with LISA and GALA, the leading industry associations. Once vendors are in the system and active, they will be rated/evaluated by the client at the close of each project. These feedback scores are what will drive business to the best vendors, as clients will review vendor profiles prior to selecting a partner.
Cloudwords makes managing this process easy and fast. Through our innovative platform we deliver visibility, control, and centralized project management. Finally!
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Salesforce.com is the worldwide leader in on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) services. More companies trust their vital customer and sales data to salesforce.com than any other on-demand CRM company in the world.
Salesforce.com was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, who pioneered the concept of delivering enterprise applications via a simple Web site. Salesforce.com is constantly building on that legacy by improving and expanding our award-winning suite of on-demand applications, our Force.com platform for extending Salesforce, and our one-of-a-kind AppExchange directory of on-demand applications.
Salesforce.com has received considerable recognition in the industry, including:
• Technology of the Year (InfoWorld, 2004, 2005, 2006)
• Editors' Choice Award (PC Magazine, 2002, 2003, 2004)
• Visionary Award (SDForum, 2004)
• Best of the Web (Forbes, 2003)
• CRM Excellence Award (Customer Inter@ction Solutions, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006)
• Top 100 Innovators Award (BusinessWeek, 2006)
• Innovation Award (AMR Research, 2005)
• CODIE Award for Best CRM (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006)
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