Language I/O, the first VC-funded, fully SaaS company in the state of Wyoming and the first to achieve ISO27001 certification — a data security standard — has joined efforts with CyberWyoming to support other small companies to take that first step toward security and data privacy.
In 2020, Language I/O became ISO27001:2013 certified, proving that small Wyoming businesses can compete internationally, according to a press release. At the time, Language I/O employed 15 people. Through this process, the company was able to reduce client sales negotiations to one fourth of the time. Since 2020, the company has maintained that certification year over year and now employs 55 employees.
Language I/O provides SaaS technology that enables monolingual support teams to chat and email their customers in any language. The company also provides a multilingual chatbot and knowledge base translation solution. Touting machine translation support for more than 150 languages, Language I/O boasts customers such as LinkedIn, Shutterstock, NBCU and Expedia.
“While there are other real-time translation solutions out there, none that are enterprise-ready are also zero trace like the Language I/O solution,” CEO Heather Morgan Shoemaker said. “Our platform that provides the most accurate, real-time translation solution for businesses is powered by our proprietary machine learning models that improve translation quality automatically.”
Per the release, cybersecurity and data privacy are important in support situations because there is a good possibility that personal information is transferred in support chats and emails. Thus, ensuring data privacy in Language I/O’s operations and products was critical to its long-term growth.
After establishing a security culture, Language I/O decided to invest in a new head of security and IT, Bill Hastings of Lander. Hastings brings 23 years of experience in cybersecurity and IT to Language I/O.
“The benefits for a company, especially a SaaS company, when it comes to defining a security posture that shows the world you are serious about security, extends far beyond what can be achieved without it,” Hastings said.
In August 2023, Language I/O’s continuous improvement efforts paid off as it was awarded $8 million in venture capital funding to reach its dreams of a higher level of artificial intelligence in its products. Three million of that came from the State of Wyoming’s newly formed VC fund, and Language I/O was the first company it invested in. To date, Language I/O has raised $22.7 million in funding, the release states.
“Security risk management is a foundational element of business growth. Learning to manage your cybersecurity risks can give your company a real competitive advantage, as Language I/O has proven,” said Laura Baker, executive director of CyberWyoming and administrator of Wyoming’s Cybersecurity Competition for Small Businesses. Baker added that she is extremely excited about Language I/O’s success.
Language I/O became a CyberWyoming Founding Member to support other businesses in their security journeys and to help promote Wyoming’s Cybersecurity Competition for Small Businesses.
“The Made Safe in Wyoming program continues to prove that there is value to cybersecurity in a company’s security efforts,” Hastings said.
The competition was developed by CyberWyoming in 2018 to encourage Wyoming small businesses to meet best practices in cybersecurity through a home-grown program called Made Safe in Wyoming. The competition has gained national and international attention, being the only one of its kind and in February 2022 winning a Gula Tech Foundation Award to expand its program in 2023, the release states
