localization 
Masaru Ikeda
See the original post in Japanese
Tokyo-based startup Yaraku has introduced a website translation tool called World Jumper, and it has recently raised about 110 million yen ($1.1 million) from Nissay Capital, Nippon Venture Capital, and several other angel investors.
The startup was first launched back in 2009, and it has been providing multi-lingual translation services for website owners. In terms of differentiation from other translation services, the company outsources orders to third-party agencies, but it also accumulates frequently-used translation requests and results in the database for future reference. This results in better translation results without the need to outsource to agencies, and it helps keep translation costs down while the quality improves as time goes by. The startup has different translation databases for different categories of websites, such as e-commerce sites, portal sites, or general corporate websites.
The startup’s clients include eBay, the guide app Tokyo Cool, Sunbridge Venture Capital, and digital ad agency Opt. All these companies typically need website translation in order to reach global audiences.
The multilingual-translation tool includes a feature that scrapes your website, recognizes which part needs changes or additional translation when the website is updated. In this process, a translation will be provided based on the original HTML file without changing the source codes, so that you don’t need to re-edit the files for each additional language as long as its design format or website structure is the same as the original. Essentially, the clients don’t need to care about maintaining their non-Japanese websites.
Of course even with cutting-edge technology, automated translation between different languages cannot ensure total accuracy without human intervention. The World Jumper system still has the possibility of mistranslation or awkwardness. But in order to reduce this risk, the service gives you an interface where you can translate by yourself to educate the system for more accurate results with the future orders.
The fee consists of 80,000 yen ($800) for the initial account setup, 8,800 yen ($88) for monthly usage, and additional costs for manual translation. Your first translation requests is processed manually, but subsequent requests will be processed based on the database. This step is the one that results in reduced total costs.
With this funding, the startup plans further development on the platform, making it open to third-party developers. They expect to acquire 1,000 corporate user accounts by the end of this year.
In this space, we have already seen other competitors including HongKong’s One Sky, Finland’s Get Localization, and Silicon Valley’s Transifex.
Yukari Mitsuhashi
