Payoneer founder Yuval Tal raises $8.5M for Linguana to take YouTubers global
AI-powered platform helps creators translate, dub, and monetize videos worldwide.
Yuval Tal, the prominent entrepreneur behind Payoneer and Borderfree, has founded a new startup named Linguana, which is developing a global distribution and monetization platform for creators. To date, the company has raised $8.5 million from several notable investors, including Oren Zeev, Zohar Gillon, Eyal Waldman, and Oren Dobronsky, as well as the venture capital fund 2LVC.
Joining Yuval Tal at Linguana is Oded Shafran, who will serve as CTO. Shafran, an experienced video technology executive from IMGN Media (acquired by Warner Music Group and TVinci (acquired by Kaltura), is driving Linguana’s innovation in high-quality content adaptation.
Linguana’s founding team also includes Eyal Baumel, President of Yoola and a leading expert in the creator economy, Team8, former Payoneer executives - former CEO, Scott Galit, Galit Assaf (COO), and Jonny Steel (CMO).
“The creator economy is one of the most fascinating industries to me. People today engage only where content creators are. Many independent creators get more views than CNN. There are people teaching literature or physics online who do it better than traditional teachers,” Tal told Calcalist.
According to Tal, "People today consume content from creators, and I wanted to find a way to enter the industry and be part of it. We realized that the global aspect was the biggest challenge. You can create an incredible video in Hebrew, but no one in Italy will ever see it. Or take, for example, a woman talking about Christian sites in Israel—people are eager to watch that kind of content. There’s an endless amount of content that the world wants to access, but despite all the available technology, making it accessible is still expensive and complicated. Our solution combines technological tools with a fintech-inspired business model in which we partner with creators rather than obligating them financially. If their content doesn’t succeed, we absorb the loss—but if it does, we share the revenue."
Tal further explained, "We take high-performing YouTube videos, break them down into separate voice components, detect and remove advertisements, and adjust the video pacing to fit the target language. We then generate a voice similar to the original creator’s while preserving their tone and emotional expression, which is the hardest part. Our agreements are directly with the creators—all of their videos fall under our umbrella, and we pay them on a quarterly basis. We currently support nine languages, and we’re expanding. In fact, most of our employees speak more Spanish than Hebrew. I self-funded the company until I was confident that we had a product-market fit. I didn’t want to raise money until I saw real customer adoption—only then did we turn to investors."
Linguana employs 26 people, most of whom are based in Israel. "The company is growing by 30% every month, thanks to the success of our model," Tal added.
Linguana partners with YouTube channels to expand their global reach. The company manages the entire process—including translation, dubbing, distribution, and monetization—using a combination of AI-driven tools, proprietary technology, and human oversight.
“Linguana has opened the door to entirely new audiences for my content - my videos are now available in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Polish, and German, and the viewers feel like I’m speaking each language myself,” said Charles Dowding, world-renowned gardening expert and popular YouTuber. “I’m impressed by the quality of the dubbing and how well it preserves my tone and message. We’re now seeing more than 250,000 views per month on these localized channels, which has brought both new reach and meaningful revenue growth - all without adding to my workload.”
