Enabling a leading US language solutions integrator to acquire a European target
The Mandate
Unbabel was known as a pioneer of the LangOps platform and one of the most well-funded language industry startups of the 2010s.
Based in Lisbon, Portugal and San Francisco, California, the company developed language technology such as machine translation, AI, LLM, and quality estimation solutions designed to enhance multilingual support operations and localization.
Unbabel completed its first ever acquisition in 2021, to “expand beyond customer service faster and deliver a more comprehensive multilingual solution for customer experience.”
Slator’s Role
Seeking to make additional acquisitions in Europe to support its expansion and diversification, Unbabel mandated Slator as its exclusive M&A buy-side advisor in its search for European acquisition targets.
We helped our client to deliver against its strategy by identifying the most promising acquisition targets in the European market for language solutions and making warm introductions for them.
One such company was EVS Translations, a Germany-based language solutions integrator (LSI) founded in 1991, which specialized in legal and financial translation, among other verticals.
The Outcome
Unbabel completed the acquisition of EVS Translations successfully, and announced the transaction in Q1 2023.
Unbabel’s then CEO remarked on the strategic importance of EVS, commenting: “With Europe comprising 49% of the industry, our acquisition of EVS Translations […] will provide strategic access to the German market as well as the broader European market.”
“With EVS Translations, Unbabel will have more data to train MT engines in new industry verticals such as finance, legal, and automotive.” — Vasco Pedro, Former CEO, Unbabel