America-based Ollang, which provides subtitle translations and dubbing services to world languages for audiovisual media, especially films, series and documentaries, received a seed investment of $1.5 million.
Ollang, which was founded by Ebru Yildirim, provides qualified subtitle and dubbing services in more than 60 languages in order to reach more viewers with content published in foreign languages in line with its vision. In this direction, a think tank of 25 people and a team of translators consisting of more than 1400 professionals from 56 different countries work simultaneously. With the services provided, it is aimed to maximize the accessibility of the media. The company currently continues its activities as a reliable solution partner for video broadcasting platforms such as Netflix and YouTube, TV broadcasting organs such as ATV and Startv, online education platforms and content producers in social media.
In addition to Revo Capital, JIMCO (Jameel Investment Management Company), twozero Ventures, Dubai Angel Investors, valuable angel investors such as Koray Bahar from Join Venture, Ahu Serter from Arya Melek Investment network and Orkun Isitmak also participated in the tour in which the company received investment.
Having increased its total valuation nearly four times in less than three years after the investments received, the company reached more customers in South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, and Italy and France as of the last quarter of 2022. In addition, various services are offered to industry-renowned content publishers and distributors in the USA and Turkiye.
Ollang uses AI support for end-to-end localization solutions. On the other hand, the company specializes in captioning and AI Dubbing. Ollang, whose vision is to instantly watch any video or audio content in 122 languages, offers a technology platform called Olabs to both its customers and its translators. In 2022, the company achieved an 183% increase in its customer portfolio, with a total of over 2 million minutes of subtitle translation and over 30,000 minutes of dubbing.
“Why artificial intelligence?” Ollang Co-Founder and CEO Ebru Yildirim, who made evaluations about the question, said, “The research company called Grand View Research predicts that digital broadcasting will reach $330 billion in the world by 2030. More than 500 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube every minute. While there are so many valuable movies, TV series and digital content that should not remain in a single language, we need to make the localization process accessible to every publisher and distributor. In addition, artificial intelligence supported subtitle and dubbing solutions significantly reduce costs, shorten production times, and facilitate the work of translators and sound artists compared to methods that rely solely on human labor. Thus, more time and energy can be devoted to fine language work.”
Muhammed Aziz Ulak, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Co-Founder of Ollang, said, “Each one of them works with an expert product team experienced in their field. Ulak, emphasizing that the growing excitement behind the growth they have achieved and the investments they have received, stated that he has good news for Ollang customers and said, “We have launched the new version of Olabs. If everything goes as planned, we will start introducing Ollang’s new products to our customers by the beginning of June at the latest.”
Twozero Ventures Managing Partner Yigit Arslan pointed out that the investment process was very productive for all parties and said, “Ollang brings innovative solutions to media problems with the services it provides with its visionary team and artificial intelligence support. We foresee that all subtitling and dubbing processes will be carried out through artificial intelligence applications in the next 5 years. We believe that Ollang will be among the initiatives that will lead the change in this process. The company has gained significant momentum with the right strategies and practices developed to date. In the upcoming period, we will continue to work in cooperation to move Ollang forward.”
Revo Capital Co-Founder Cenk Bayrakdar, who made evaluations on the investment process, said, “We are moving towards a world where artificial intelligence removes the limits of communication between people. As the media industry continues to globalize, media companies will be able to deliver their content to audiences around the world, thanks to the global content created by Ollang’s artificial intelligence/NLP-based dubbing platform. We are happy to support the revolutionary technology of Ollang, which leads from Turkiye to an industry where every pixel and every sound wave is meticulously examined by using productive artificial intelligence, and contribute to the growth of Ollang with this investment tour.”
Source: Egirisim / Prepared by Irem Yildiz