Iyuno-SDI gets $160m investment from SoftBank for localization services

Iyuno-SDI Group, a localization services provider for the media and entertainment sectors, has bagged an investment of $160 million from SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

The company said that the investment gives it the required resources for supporting its objective of transforming the localization industry.

With the investment, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 will be one of the largest shareholders of Iyuno-SDI.

David Lee – CEO of Iyuno-SDI Group said: “SoftBank Vision Fund 2 joining Iyuno-SDI’s impressive group of investors is a significant milestone in the evolution of our company. “SoftBank Vision Fund 2’s portfolio companies are each transformative in their respective industries and Iyuno-SDI is proud to join this network of businesses innovating and advancing the state of the art.”

Iyuno-SDI Group is said to utilize artificial intelligence (AI) and neural machine translation technologies along with creative and linguistic skills to deliver localization services to large content producers and distributors across the world.

Chris Lee – Director at SoftBank Investment Advisers said: “We believe the media and entertainment sector is undergoing massive disruption, as content distribution and consumption patterns are dramatically changing.

“We are excited to partner with David and the Iyuno-SDI team to support their mission of delivering technology-driven localization services to the media and entertainment industry.”

In 2018, SoftBank Ventures Asia – the venture capital arm of SoftBank Group became one of the first institutional investors of Iyuno Media Group.

Recently, Iyuno Media Group completed the acquisition of SDI Media, a media localization provider that offers dubbing, subtitling, and media services for broadcasters, content owners, and multi-platform distributors. The merger paved the way for the Iyuno-SDI Group.