Localazy
A Czech software-localization company founded in 2020 by Václav Hodek in Brno, which raised nearly €1 million across two funding rounds, expanded into Poland in 2024, and shipped an AI translation engine with style guides in 2025.
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- Established
- 2020
- Location
- Brno / Slavkov u Brna, Czech Republic
- Country
- Czech Republic
- Founded
- 2020 (incorporated 18 March 2020)
- Founder
- Václav Hodek
- Headquarters
- Brno area, Czech Republic (registered office Mlýnská 326, Brno)stated by the subject
- Ownership
- Václav Hodek holds a 56.22% majority stake; investors include Lighthouse Seed Fund (24.89%), LWi (10%), GA Investiční LCL (4.44%), JIC Ventures (2.22%) and 12bullets (2.22%)
- Total funding reported
- Nearly €1 million across two rounds (2020 seed, 2023 round of about €500,000) at a €4.5M valuation
- Reported reach
- Users from 113 countries (reported June 2023)
Overview
Localazy is a Czech software-localization (translation-management) company founded by developer-entrepreneur Václav Hodek and launched publicly in March 2020 in Brno (CzechCrunch; Lupa.cz). The platform combines machine and AI translation, professional human translators, and community contributors to help software teams ship products in many languages, and the language-industry press reported users from 113 countries in 2023 (Slator). The company raised a seed round from Prague-based Lighthouse Ventures in 2020 and a second round in June 2023 at a €4.5 million valuation, bringing total reported funding to nearly €1 million (Slator; Forbes Czech Republic).
Founder and origins
Before Localazy, Hodek ran his own software studio and then concentrated on his own mobile apps — most notably Floating Apps, an Android multitasking app that CzechCrunch reported at 7.5 million downloads in 2020 (CzechCrunch). Selling apps worldwide, he noticed two things: users struggled with untranslated apps, and every new language unlocked faster growth — Japan, famously hard to enter, became his second-largest market after the US. But managing translations across 35 languages with the tools then available was painful, so he decided to build his own solution (FoundersToday). He developed the first version of Localazy as a side project alongside client work and went full-time once early users responded (FoundersToday). The company was incorporated as Localazy s.r.o. on 18 March 2020 with Hodek as managing director (Chytrý rejstřík), and within its first month public the platform secured seed investment from Lighthouse Ventures, whose managing partner Michal Zálešák called it “a bet on a capable entrepreneur who has already achieved success previously” (CzechCrunch).
Platform and product
Localazy is a translation-management system offering a choice of approaches: integrated AI and machine translation, professional human translation services, an interface for a customer’s own translators, or community volunteers — with no seat limits, so a project’s community can participate freely (FoundersToday). Hodek describes the typical turnaround for a medium-sized project as about one week, while machine-translation-first workflows can deliver initial translations in seconds for later human review (FoundersToday). The company says the platform integrates with more than 50 frameworks, tools and file formats and is certified to ISO 27001 and SOC 2 — company-supplied claims from its own release (Newsfile). Documented integrations include a Figma plugin, a Strapi plugin, Webflow and Zendesk connectors, webhooks, a public API and a CLI (Localazy blog; Localazy blog). In October 2023 Localazy partnered with Poedit — the desktop translation editor created in 2001 by Czech developer Václav Slavík — on an integration that syncs cloud-based management with offline desktop translation work (MultiLingual).
Funding and ownership
In June 2023 Forbes Czech Republic reported a second funding round of approximately €500,000, led by the Garage Angels group — including named investors Jiří Hlavenka and Karel Obluk — alongside 12Bullets, JIC Ventures and returning investor Lighthouse Ventures (Forbes Czech Republic). Slator’s contemporaneous industry reporting clarifies the arithmetic behind the conflicting headlines: the fresh round was “several hundred thousands euros,” the similar-sized 2020 Lighthouse round brought the cumulative total to “nearly €1M,” and the company’s valuation reached €4.5M (Slator). AIN’s headline instead announced “fresh €1 million funding” — the one outlier phrasing, documented in the open items (AIN). Both Slator and Forbes described the company as already profitable at the time (Slator). Czech business-register data records Hodek with a 56.22% majority stake, alongside Lighthouse Seed Fund (24.89%), LWi (10%), GA Investiční LCL (4.44%), JIC Ventures (2.22%) and 12bullets (2.22%); the same data puts 2024 turnover at CZK 10–30 million and the 2025 net result at CZK −1.78 million on CZK 8.37 million in assets — aggregator figures, flagged as indicative rather than certified (Chytrý rejstřík).
Growth, clients and recognition
Named clients in independent press include the virtual-cycling platform ROUVY and the cloud provider Scaleway, plus — per Slator — banks and automotive manufacturers; non-profit and social-enterprise users named include Plastic Bank, Donar Online and CARE (AIN; Slator). In April 2024 Localazy expanded into the Polish market, covered by AIN and independently by Tech.eu (AIN; Tech.eu); Hodek called Poland “the natural next step,” noting that part of the team is based in Katowice (FoundersToday). In August 2024 the company joined the Czech Fintech Association (CEFTAS), a network of more than 40 Czech tech businesses (Newsfile). Hodek has also described the company’s non-profit work: supporting organizations at the start of the war in Ukraine, backing environmental causes, and drawing on his relationship with the Czech deaf community — “any non-profit is welcome to contact us,” he said (FoundersToday). In HackerNoon’s Startups of the Year 2024 program, Localazy earned an honorable mention in the AI Wrappers industry category (HackerNoon).
2025: AI releases and the year in review
In July 2025 Localazy replaced its 2-million-character machine-translation fair-use cap with a transparent credit system — for example, the $39 Professional plan includes $5 in credits (12,500 words) and bulk automated translation costs $0.0004 per word across engines (Localazy blog). In October 2025 the company launched style guides — defining tone, formality, audience and per-language rules in one place — alongside a new Localazy AI translation engine that automatically follows the project’s glossary and style guide; DeepL and Google Translate were also made to respect glossary terms (Localazy blog), a launch noted independently by the locanucu localization-industry newsletter (locanucu). Dark mode shipped in beta in November 2025, and the company’s 2025 year-in-review added rule-based Automations, Webflow and Strapi v5 integrations, a navigation redesign, an ambassador rewards program, and four new human-translation languages — Somali, Tigrinya, Punjabi and Bengali — alongside 18 podcast episodes, two hackathons and two new team members (Localazy blog). For scale, the same review reports over 200 million processed translations across 38,000 projects in 2025, with French, German and Spanish the top target languages — company-reported figures, not independently verified (Localazy blog).
What this profile does not claim
No claim is made about the marketed reach figures (“1 billion people” mission, “500 million impacted”): these are the founder’s stated mission and personal estimate, quoted in AIN and Slator, not independently measured results. No customer relationship with UNICEF is stated, since no independent source confirming it was found. No claim is made that the “€1 million” figure describes the fresh 2023 round — the weight of contemporaneous reporting says it is the cumulative total across both rounds (see open items). No claim is made about current profitability: June 2023 press described the company as already profitable, while 2025 registry data shows a net loss — different periods, and neither establishes the present. The HackerNoon “Brno/Localization winner” title seen on an auto-generated company page is not repeated, since HackerNoon’s published winners list confirms only an honorable mention. No industry award beyond that mention is stated, and shareholder and financial figures rest on a commercial register aggregator rather than certified extracts.
Timeline
- 2020
- Localazy s.r.o. is incorporated on 18 March 2020 with Václav Hodek as managing director; Hodek, previously the developer of the Android app Floating Apps, launches the localization platform publicly in March and secures seed investment from Prague-based Lighthouse Ventures within its first month.
- 2023
- Closes a second funding round of about €500,000 (several hundred thousand euros) from Garage Angels, 12Bullets and JIC Ventures alongside returning investor Lighthouse Ventures, at a €4.5M valuation, bringing total funding to nearly €1 million; in October, announces an integration with the Poedit desktop translation editor.
- 2024
- Expands into the Polish market in April; joins the Czech Fintech Association (CEFTAS) as a full member in August; Hodek gives an in-depth interview on the platform's origins and approach in July.
- 2025
- Replaces its machine-translation fair-use cap with a transparent credit system (July); launches style guides and a new Localazy AI translation engine that follows brand glossaries (October); ships dark mode in beta (November); earns an honorable mention in HackerNoon's Startups of the Year AI Wrappers category.
What we could not verify
These claims came up in research and could not be confirmed. They are recorded here rather than published as fact or quietly dropped. If you hold a source that settles one, please tell us.
- Funding-amount conflict, substantially resolved: AIN's June 2023 headline and body describe "fresh €1 million funding," while Slator's contemporaneous industry reporting says the fresh round was "several hundred thousands euros" with "nearly €1M" raised in total across both rounds — matching Forbes Czech Republic (about €500,000) and the company's own CEFTAS release ("several hundred thousand euros"). This profile follows the about-€500k-round / nearly-€1M-total reading; AIN's divergent phrasing is noted and not adopted.
- Founding year: tertiary references mention a five-person team starting development in 2019 ahead of a spring-2020 public launch, but no independent source confirming a 2019 start was found. The company was incorporated on 18 March 2020 and the earliest independent reporting describes the March 2020 public launch, so this profile uses 2020.
- Reach figures ("1 billion people" mission, "500 million impacted"): these are the CEO's stated mission and personal estimate, quoted in AIN and Slator — not independently measured figures. They are described with attribution in the profile and not asserted as fact.
- A customer relationship with UNICEF appears in tertiary references and company materials, but no independent source confirming it was found; it is not stated here.
- HackerNoon recognition: HackerNoon's published 2024 winners list names Localazy only as an honorable mention in the AI Wrappers industry category. A HackerNoon-generated company page styles it as the Startups of the Year 2024 winner for Brno in the localization industry; that title could not be confirmed against an official winners announcement and is not asserted here.
- Profitability timing: June 2023 press described the company as already profitable; Czech registry data shows a CZK −1.78M net result for 2025. These refer to different periods; no claim about current profitability is made.
Sources
16 sources (1 tier 1, 7 tier 2, 4 tier 3, 4 first-party), each opened and read against the claim it supports. Statements the subject makes about itself are marked as such and are not treated as independent evidence. See the source policy.
Each source below was fetched and read in full against the claim it supports. Wikipedia (Czech and English articles on the company and its founder) was used only as a lead index to surface candidate facts and references; it is not cited. First-party sources (the company's Newsfile release and blog) are used only for uncontested product and company facts and are flagged as such. Shareholder and financial figures come from Chytrý rejstřík, a commercial aggregator of Czech public-register data, not from certified register extracts, and are treated as indicative. Where sources disagreed on the 2023 funding amount, the disagreement is documented in openItems rather than silently resolved.
- Supports: The 2023 funding round amount (about €500,000), the investor list, the Slavkov u Brna location, and the profitability remark. Open original source
- Supports: The founder's background, Floating Apps, the platform's March 2020 launch, and the 2020 seed investment from Lighthouse Ventures. Open original source
- Supports: Corroboration of the 2020 founding, Brno location, and seed funding. Open original source
- Supports: Resolution of the funding-amount conflict (fresh round of several hundred thousand euros; nearly €1M total), the €4.5M valuation, users from 113 countries, profitability, named clients, and investor quotes. Open original source
- Supports: The 2023 funding announcement as AIN phrased it (the '€1M' side of the conflict), the client roster, and Hodek's mission and reach-estimate quotes. Open original source
- Supports: The Localazy–Poedit integration partnership and quotes from Hodek and Poedit founder Václav Slavík. Open original source
- Supports: The 2024 Polish market expansion and named clients (ROUVY, Scaleway, Plastic Bank, Donar Online, CARE). Open original source
- Supports: Independent corroboration of the 2024 Polish expansion. Open original source
- Supports: Founder interview: origin story, side-project start, how the platform works, NGO and Ukraine-war support, customer geography, the Poland/Katowice team, and the 'stable, could be profitable' remark. Open original source
- Supports: Localazy's honorable mention in the AI Wrappers category of HackerNoon's Startups of the Year 2024. Open original source
- Supports: Independent industry-newsletter note of Localazy's October 2025 AI release. Open original source
- Supports: Incorporation date (18 March 2020), registered office, managing director, shareholder structure, 2024 turnover band, and 2025 assets and net result — flagged as aggregator data. Open original source
- Supports: CEFTAS membership, the 'several hundred thousand euros' 2023 round corroboration, and company-supplied product details (ISO 27001, SOC 2, 50+ integrations). Open original source
- Supports: 2025 developments: 200M+ processed translations for 38,000 projects (company-reported), top languages, industry mix, dark mode, ambassador program, four new human-translation languages, podcast, hackathons, and team growth. Open original source
- Supports: The October 2025 launch of style guides and the new Localazy AI engine, and glossary-aware machine translation. Open original source
- Supports: The July 2025 switch from a fair-use character cap to a credit-based machine-translation system, including plan credit allocations. Open original source
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