AI translation unicorn DeepL launches New York tech hub to boost US expansion

DeepL, the Cologne-based AI translation unicorn, today launched its first tech hub in the US, in New York City.

The move follows the company’s increasing growth and investment in the US market, where it already counts customers such as Coursera and Morningstar. DeepL opened its first US office, in Austin, Texas, earlier this year.

The New York tech hub will focus on research, product innovation, and engineering, aiming to boost the startup’s expansion in the region.

“[It] positions us at the centre of one of the largest talent pools in the market and brings us closer to our customers, including many Fortune 500 companies,” Jarek Kutylowski, CEO and founder of DeepL, said in a statement.

The company is actively hiring for product and engineering positions, planning to double the hub’s size within the next 12 months.

To further support growth in the US, DeepL has also appointed a new chief technology officer, Sebastian Enderlein, who previously led software development and engineering teams in Uber and Salesforce.

Strategic focus

Since its founding in 2017, DeepL has managed to successfully rival machine translation giants such as Google Translate. The company reached unicorn status in 2022, and rose to a $2bn valuation in May this year, following a $300mn investment round.

One element behind DeepL’s significant growth is its focus on AI translation alone, supported by its proprietary neural network technology.

“Translate isn’t the core business of Google — it’s one of the 100 side gigs” Kutylowski told TNW in a previous interview.

“The same goes if you consider LLMs and the OpenAIs of this world as our competition; translation is only one thing of what they’re doing and their GPU is doing a tonne of different things. We’re focused on one particular area.”

Another element is DeepL’s strategy to mainly target the B2B market, where it sees the biggest demand for its services.

To date, the startup offers translation services for over 30 languages and has a customer network of more than 100,000 businesses. In the past few months, DeepL has launched a series of products for business users, including an AI writing assistant and an AI glossary generator.