Karlsruhe Institute of Technology spinout Kites has agreed to an acquisition of undisclosed size by Zoom Video Communications.

Kites, a Germany-based real-time machine translation technology developer spun out of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, has been acquired by video conferencing platform Zoom Video Communications.
Financial terms of the acquisition have not been revealed.
Founded in 2015, Kites is working on technologies that enable seamless translations for spoken interactions. The technology will be integrated into Zoom’s offering and the corporate will look to further grow Kites’ team, as well as potentially opening an R&D centre in Germany.
Velchamy Sankarlingam, president of product and engineering at Zoom, said: “We are continuously looking for new ways to deliver happiness to our users and improve meeting productivity, and machine translation solutions will be key in enhancing our platform for Zoom customers across the globe.
“With our aligned missions to make collaboration frictionless – regardless of language, geographic location, or other barriers – we are confident Kites’ impressive team will fit right in with Zoom.”

Thierry Heles

Thierry Heles is the editor of Global University Venturing, host of the Beyond the Breakthrough interview podcast and responsible for the monthly GUV Gazette (sign up here for free).