• Linguana uses AI to help YouTubers create multiple channels in different languages.
• It's generating hundreds of thousands of dollars for creator partners monthly.
• Here's the pitch deck the company used to raise its $8.5 million seed round.

A startup that uses AI translation technology to make new YouTube channels for creators targeting different locales has snagged $8.5 million in seed funding.

Linguana is led by cofounder and CEO Yuval Tal, an Israeli serial entrepreneur who previously founded financial services firm Payoneer and e-commerce company Borderfree. Linguana will use the funds to invest in technology and onboard more creators, Tal told Business Insider.

Linguana already works with hundreds of YouTubers for whom it generates 10,000 video translations — and hundreds of thousands of dollars of new revenue — each month. It's looking for established creators with more than 1 million views a month who focus on evergreen subjects.

It's one of many startups looking to harness AI to help media businesses scale. Dubbing in particular is a hot topic in the creator economy, with the likes of MrBeast championing the tools.

YouTube unveiled its own auto-dubbing features in December, which are currently available on a limited basis.

But Tal contended that creating stand-alone channels results in better viewership. It allows for translated thumbnails and video descriptions, as well as comment sections that aren't clouded by different languages, he said.

Linguana's AI technology captures the tone of creators' voices, and the company works with human reviewers to verify its work.

CMO Jonny Steel told BI that Linguana's goal was "ultimate authenticity" in making creators sound like they're speaking in the different languages themselves. He said the company had received feedback from creators that it had a "higher quality of accuracy" than Google's auto-dubbing tools.

Linguana doesn't charge up front. Rather, it shares revenues with creators on the backend in a 50/50 split. Tal described it as "additional revenue without doing anything."

After signing an agreement, Linguana gains access to a creator's channel. It chooses which videos to dub, removes any brand integrations, and then publishes at an optimal time, along with translated thumbnails and video descriptions.

It also combs through creators' catalogs to pick videos that are most likely to resonate in other regions.

"You need to do the crystal ball of what videos to put where," Tal said.

One creator partner is gardener Charles Dowding, who said his six localized channels are now seeing 250,000 views a month. For some international creators in Russia and Brazil, where ad rates can be lower, localization has yielded "life-changing" earnings, Tal said.

Angel investors who contributed to the round include Oren Zeev, Zohar Gilon, Eyal Waldman, and Oren Dobronsky. The early-stage venture firm 2LVC also invested.

Read the pitch deck that Linguana used to raise its seed round below.

Note: Some slides have been redacted so that the deck could be shared publicly.

Linguana's proposition: "Monetizing the world for video creators"

Linguana says it's optimizing a process where few creators have succeeded

Here's what the slide says:

Many creators tried localizing to reach new audiences…very few succeeded.

We optimize the content localization process through our advanced AI automation software and unique partnership model. We build and manage the creator's local language YouTube channels, and share the revenues with them.

The company breaks down its different capabilities

Here's what the slide says:

From "Yes" to $$$

• Premium, tailor-made integration of advanced AI tools for high-quality video-to-video localization
• Zero operational overhead — expanding globally made effortless
• Optimizing selection of videos in timing and destination
• Distributing content through fully localized channels
• Global monetization

We split the revenue, but take on the fees and risk

Linguana lists some of its creator partners, including Veritasium and Simple History

The slide lists a sampling of Linguana's creator partners, including Civilian Tactical, Bros Of Decay, Wars of the World, The Infographics Show, Mentour Pilot, Veritasium, Doctor Alekseev, Slav's Adventures, The Military Show, and Simple History.

Localized video viewership grew "rapidly" from 19.5 million to 108.1 million in 2024

The chart illustrates overall viewership growth in 2024, which increased from 19.5 million in Q1 to 108.1 million in Q4. In the first quarter of 2025, the company was forecasting 190.5 million views across all localized channels.

Linguana shares a use case for a Russian health channel it's translated into 11 languages

The slide describes a Russian channel for whom Linguana created 11 additional channels. For one video that originally clocked 4.7 million views, Linguana says it unlocked $12,900 in additional revenue on the strength of its Spanish and English translations.

Linguana shares a use case for a US geopolitics channel it's translated into 5 languages

The slide describes an English-language YouTube channel in geopolitics for whom Linguana created five additional channels. For one video that originally clocked 600,000 views, Linguana says it unlocked $2,000 in additional revenue.

Linguana shares a use case for a UK history channel it's translated into 9 languages

The slide describes an English-language YouTube channel in the history category for whom Linguana created nine localized channels. For one video that originally clocked 2 million views, Linguana says it unlocked $3,400 in additional revenue.

Linguana says it has increased both audience and revenues for creators

The slide breaks down the gains in both video audience and additional revenue in each of the aforementioned use cases.

Linguana says it offloads the "complex and tedious" work of localization

Here's what the slide says:

Localization is complex and tedious.

We offload all the operational overhead from the creators.

• Requires expertise
• Logistical nightmare
• Combination of tech & human
• Unpredictable financial results

Linguana's founding team

The slide lists some of the company's top executives, including cofounder and CEO Yuval Tal, cofounder and CTO Oded Shafran, COO Galit Assaf, and head of revenue and partnerships Shuki Merlis.

The company takes on upfront costs in exchange for a revenue split on the back end

Here's what the slide says:

Costs

• AI tools
• Human proofing and sorting for multiple speakers
• Infrastructure
• Sales, BD, agency commissions

50/50 split of all revenues with creator

Thank you

It ends with a thank you page.

Meta is launching a new program in partnership with UNESCO to collect speech recordings and transcriptions the company said will help the development of future openly available AI. The program, the Language Technology Partner Program, is seeking collaborators who can contribute more than 10 hours of speech recordings with transcriptions, large amounts of written text, […]

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• In the Oscars' nearly century-long history, only nine women have ever been nominated for their directing.
• Jane Campion, Chloé Zhao, and Kathryn Bigelow are the only women to win the best director award.
• Coralie Fargeat is the latest woman to be nominated, for her film "The Substance."

The Oscars have been around since 1929, but to date, only nine women have been nominated for the award for best director.

Since Lina Wertmüller became the first woman nominated for the award in 1977, there have only been a handful of subsequent nominations, and even more notable snubs. Only three women who were nominated for the award have ever won it.

Coralie Fargeat, who was nominated for "The Substance," is now the ninth woman to be nominated for the award for best director at the Oscars.

Fargeat and "The Substance" have been major players on the festival and awards circuit in the 2024-2025 season. Fargeat won the award for best screenplay at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, and she notched nominations for directing and screenplay at the 2025 Golden Globes. Demi Moore, the film's star, was also nominated for best actress at the Academy Awards after winning the same award at the 2025 Golden Globes.

Here are all the women who have been nominated for best director at the Oscars.

Lina Wertmüller, "Seven Beauties" (1977)

In 1977, Wertmüller became the first woman ever to be nominated in the directing category at the 49th Academy Awards. She was also nominated for best original screenplay. Her film, "Seven Beauties," is an Italian-language movie about an Italian man who deserts the army during World War II, and is captured by Germans and sent to prison camp. 

Wertmüller lost the directing category to John G. Avildsen for "Rocky." Other nominees in the category were Sidney Lumet ("Network"), Ingmar Bergman ("Face to Face") and Alan J. Pakula ("All the President's Men").

Jane Campion, "The Piano" (1994), "The Power of the Dog" (2022)

In 1994, Campion became the second woman to be nominated for directing a film. "The Piano," about a mute piano player and her daughter, stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, and Anna Paquin, who won best supporting actress at age 11. 

At the 66th Academy Awards ceremony, Campion won for best original screenplay, but lost the directing category to Steven Spielberg, who won for "Schindler's List."

Campion is the only woman who has earned multiple best director nominations at the Academy Awards. In 2021, she was nominated and won the award for "The Power of the Dog," which starred Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

Sofia Coppola, "Lost in Translation" (2004)

Coppola's critically acclaimed dramedy starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson was a favorite in the 2004 awards season, earning her a nomination for best director. The movie, about two lonely Americans who become friends after meeting at a Tokyo hotel, was also nominated for best picture.

Though it didn't win in either of those categories, Coppola won the statue for best original screenplay. Coppola lost the directing category to Peter Jackson for "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Other nominees in the category included Fernando Meirelles ("City of God"), Peter Weir ("Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"), and Clint Eastwood ("Mystic River").

Kathryn Bigelow, "The Hurt Locker" (2010)

Bigelow was the first female director to win an Oscar, and earned the award for her film "The Hurt Locker." The film follows an elite bomb disposal unit during the Iraq War.

Bigelow won over Quentin Tarantino ("Inglorious Basterds"), Lee Daniels ("Precious"), Jason Reitman ("Up in the Air"), and James Cameron ("Avatar").

Greta Gerwig, "Lady Bird" (2018)

Gerwig was nominated for best director for her coming-of-age film "Lady Bird," which starred Saorise Ronan and Laurie Metcalf. Metcalf and Ronan were both nominated in acting categories, Gerwig was also nominated for the award for best original screenplay, and the film was nominated for best picture.

"Lady Bird" did not win any of those awards. The directing award that year went to Guillermo del Toro for "The Shape of Water."

Chloé Zhao, "Nomadland" (2021)

Chloé Zhao became the first woman of color to win the award for best director with her film "Nomadland." The film stars Francis McDormand a woman who pursues a nomadic lifestyle in the United States.

"Nomadland" also won the best picture award that year, and McDormand won the award for best actress. Zhao was also nominated for, but did not win, the Oscars for best adapted screenplay and best film editing.

Emerald Fennell, "Promising Young Woman" (2021)

Emerald Fennell was nominated for her film "Promising Young Woman" in 2021, but lost the directing award to Zhao that year.

"Promising Young Woman" was also up for best picture that year, but also lost to "Nomadland." Fennell, however, won the award for best original screenplay.

Justine Triet, "Anatomy of a Fall" (2023)

Justine Triet was nominated for best director for her film "Anatomy of a Fall," a French film that stars Sandra Hüller (also nominated) as a woman attempting to prove that she's innocent of her husband's possible murder.

Triet did not win the directing award, which went to Christopher Nolan for "Oppenheimer." She and writing partner Arthur Harari did, however, win the award for best original screenplay.

Coralie Fargeat, "The Substance" (2024)

Fargeat is the ninth woman to be nominated for best director at the Academy Awards, and the tenth overall nomination.

Her film, "The Substance," stars Demi Moore as a actor in her 50s who, after being fired from a longtime gig, takes a drug that creates a younger version of herself, played by Margaret Qualley.

For the directing award, Fargeat is competing against Sean Baker ("Anora"), Brady Corbet ("The Brutalist"), James Mangold ("A Complete Unknown"), and Jacques Audiard ("Emilia Pérez").

Carrie Wittmer contributed to a previous version of this article.

In 2023, AI researchers at Meta interviewed 34 native Spanish and Mandarin speakers who lived in the US but didn’t speak English. The goal was to find out what people who constantly rely on translation in their day-to-day activities expect from an AI translation tool. What those participants wanted was basically a Star Trek universal translator or the Babel Fish from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: an AI that could not only translate speech to speech in real time across multiple languages, but also preserve their voice, tone, mannerisms, and emotions. So, Meta assembled a team of over 50 people and got busy building it.

What this team came up with was a next-gen translation system called Seamless. The first building block of this system is described in Wednesday’s issue of Nature; it can translate speech among 36 different languages.

Language data problems

AI translation systems today are mostly focused on text, because huge amounts of text are available in a wide range of languages thanks to digitization and the Internet. Institutions like the United Nations or European Parliament routinely translate all their proceedings into the languages of all their member states, which means there are enormous databases comprising aligned documents prepared by professional human translators. You just needed to feed those huge, aligned text corpora into neural nets (or hidden Markov models before neural nets became all the rage) and you ended up with a reasonably good machine translation system. But there were two problems with that.

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