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Language Weaver Honored as Company of the Year at Larta Institute's Venture Forum; Leader in SMTS Software Wins in Start-Up Category
LOS ANGELES --(Business Wire)-- April 21, 2004 -- Language Weaver Inc., a software company developing statistical machine translation software (SMTS), today announced it has been chosen as Company of the Year in the start-up category by attendees at The Venture Forum produced by Larta Institute. The event was held at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills on April 1, 2004.
According to Larta Institute, The 2004 Venture Forum was the largest showcase of investment-worthy companies in Southern California. Companies paid no application fee to enter, enabling Larta Institute to collect many more applications than is typical in venture capital events. 50 finalists were chosen from among over 200 applicants representing biotechnology, electronics, software, and telecommunications by a select panel of judges that included leading sector experts and influencers from the investment community. All 50 finalists were given exhibit space and 20 promising companies were asked to make a presentation at the event. Language Weaver was one of the 20 presenting companies.
According to Rohit Shukla, president and CEO of Larta Institute, "The Venture Forum, now in its tenth year, grew considerably this year as we expanded the types and stages of companies presented. Language Weaver and its technology are positioned well to capitalize on the globalization trend occurring in the venture capital and technology markets. It's a great company; we were not surprised to see the consistently high ratings they received in ballots. We congratulate them and are happy we could be instrumental in introducing them to prospective customers and investors."
Language Weaver's SMTS offers a significant departure from traditional rule-based machine translation by producing fluent, natural sounding language translations. By learning automatically from existing translated documents, Language Weaver's technology correlates word groupings from language to language to produce the highest probability output. Especially in cases of domain specific text where there is repetition in text and a limited universe of phrasing, such as technical documentation handbooks, SMTS technology saves customers considerable money and time through automation of the process. It also enables cost effective, real-time translations of previously untranslated text, like Web based customer and product support information. Its customers include both government and commercial enterprises.
Criteria on which the companies were judged included: strong management, good market research, feasibility and competitive advantages of product/technology, market need and market potential. Approximately 500 attendees went to the event and voted by ballot for the two companies they felt best exemplified "Company of the Year;" one ballot was cast for start-up stage and one for expansion stage companies. Voters included venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, university representatives, and potential strategic partners for exhibiting companies. The Company of the Year award for expansion stage went to PhatNoise Inc. while Language Weaver won the award for start-up stage.
Bryce Benjamin, CEO of Language Weaver, acknowledged the honor, saying, "We are grateful to Larta and the sponsors of the 2004 Venture Forum for inviting us to participate. Earlier this year, the MIT Technology Review identified 'automatic translation' as a technology that will change our world. We are pleased the Venture Forum audience concurred and recognizes Language Weaver as a rising star in this fast emerging field."
About Larta Institute
Larta Institute, a Los Angeles-based technology think tank, brings people together to move technologies into the marketplace. Client solutions offered include: conferences, training workshops, technology transfer, advisory services, and research and analysis.
Since 1993, companies helped by Larta Institute have raised over $1.5 billion in capital. Larta Institute's conferences and seminars provide insights to thousands of business people each year. Larta Institute's weekly electronic magazine on business innovation is read by over 20,000 people.
About Language Weaver
Language Weaver was founded in 2002 to commercialize statistical machine translation software, a unique approach to automatic language translation using proprietary statistical translation technology that resulted from 20 person-years of invention and development at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute (USC/ISI). Its first round of funding included investment from the TechCoastAngels, Athenaeum Fund and Sulphur Creek Ventures. The company has 15 patents pending on its SMTS technology. Web: www.languageweaver.com.
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