Kotoba Technologies Secures $11.83M Seed 2 for AI Interpretation
Kotoba Technologies, a trailblazer in AI-powered simultaneous interpretation, has successfully closed an $11.83 million Seed 2 funding round, signaling a significant leap forward in bringing advanced real-time speech AI to broader commercial markets. The financing, which closed on June 30, 2025, was spearheaded by leading venture capital firms Globis Capital Partners and Boost Capital, with continued support from SIP Capital and a syndicate of prominent global angel investors, including tech luminaries like Joi Ito and Thomas Wolf. This latest injection of capital brings Kotoba’s total seed funding to $13.33 million, following an initial $1.5 million Seed 1 round.
Founded in 2023 with dual bases in Tokyo, Japan, and Seattle, USA, Kotoba Technologies is on a mission to dismantle linguistic barriers through cutting-edge speech AI. The company specializes in end-to-end voice translation, dubbing, voice cloning, and high-speed speech-to-text solutions, with a particular strategic focus on underserved Asian languages. This niche focus addresses a critical gap in the generative AI landscape, where English-centric development often leaves other languages behind. The company’s innovative approach was notably showcased at the NVIDIA AI Summit Japan 2024, where it provided live AI transcription for a keynote dialogue, demonstrating the real-world applicability and robustness of its technology.
The newly secured funds are earmarked to accelerate Kotoba Technologies’ transition from intensive research and development to full-scale commercialization. This includes a strategic investment in hiring top-tier machine-learning and application engineers, crucial for advancing model development and productization, alongside building a robust business organization. Kotoba has already made strides with its DOTSU iOS app, a speech-to-speech translation tool that has garnered over 500,000 sessions in just three months, boasting an impressive latency of under 500 milliseconds for speech-to-text. The company’s latest AI model is nearing human interpreter quality for Japanese and English, with aspirations to achieve similar low latency for Japanese-Korean interpretation.
The timing of this funding round aligns with a burgeoning global market for AI simultaneous interpreting, which was valued at approximately $0.6 billion in 2024 and is projected to surge to $2.74 billion by 2033, exhibiting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 19.1% from 2025 to 2033. This growth is fueled by increasing demands for remote communication, the accelerating pace of globalization, and significant advancements in Neural Machine Translation (NMT) technology. Industry trends indicate a growing adoption of AI tools by professional interpreters, with hybrid interpretation models—combining human expertise with AI efficiency—expected to account for 40% of all interpretation services in 2025.
Globis Capital Partners, a Tokyo-based venture capital firm established in 1996, is known for its hands-on approach and strategic investments in Japanese technology companies with global potential, often supporting them from the seed stage. Boost Capital, another Japan-based investment firm, emphasizes human-centered innovation and provides comprehensive support to early-stage ventures. Their collective backing underscores the confidence in Kotoba Technologies’ vision and its capacity to revolutionize multilingual communication. While AI continues to transform the interpretation landscape, human interpreters remain vital for high-stakes and culturally sensitive scenarios, fostering a future where technology augments, rather than replaces, human connection.