London, 19 July 2023 – CIBC Innovation Banking announced today that it has provided €12m in debt financing to Phrase, a global cloud-based localisation software provider, headquartered in Prague, that helps brands localise and translate content more efficiently and manage the end-to-end process at scale. Phrase will use the funds to further develop the next generation of AI-driven language technology.
Launched in 2010 to provide translation and localisation technology to global businesses, Phrase has developed a unique platform that enables companies to connect, manage and automate every task involved in translating and localising content or software across an organisation in a centralised hub.
The system provides workflows and automation to manage projects with language service vendors, internal linguistic resources and harnesses the latest in machine translation depending on the sensitivity of the work. Backed by the Carlyle Group, Phrase’s market leading software provides a platform to coordinate and track the progress of any localisation or translation activity across the business from start to finish, providing quality assessments and analytics along the way.
Phrase has more than 300 employees and over 4,500 customers across Europe, Asia-Pacific, and North America, which is a major growth market for the company.
Georg Ell, Phrase CEO, said: “CIBC Innovation Banking’s financing will help us take our localization technology to the next level as the latest innovations in AI and machine learning continue to take off. Our business has seen tremendous growth as we’ve delivered on supporting our global clients at scale via the ease of use and connectivity our platform provides, and this investment will allow us to capitalise on the high-growth AI market.”
Sean Duffy, Managing Director of CIBC Innovation Banking’s European office, said: “We are delighted to be supporting Phrase as their software platform continues to evolve. They saw a clear need from global businesses for localisation services and have capitalised by creating a platform that makes the entire process easier and more seamless. The CIBC Innovation Banking team is looking forward to supporting Phrase on their next stage of growth.”
