Finnish startup Lingsom expands to Gothenburg
Finnish IT startup Lingsom is looking to modernize the language services industry. It has its sights set on growth and has made its first international expansion. With new partnerships in place with IBM Sweden and Shibuya, the company has just moved into an office space in central Gothenburg.
“Gothenburg is a beautiful city with a great business climate and location. Companies in the private sector are genuinely interested in new opportunities and are not afraid to invest their time and resources to explore new ventures,” says Sohrab Gebraeil, sales manager at Lingsom, who is heading the new operations in Sweden.
“The city is also willing to invest big in businesses. You can physically see the public sector’s investment in creating an inviting environment for innovation and innovative companies. The sheer abundance of testbeds and the infrastructure that it provides for attracting innovative medical, IT, industrial companies etc., are examples of this,” he adds.
Looking to grow from Sweden
The company has developed a solution for managing interpretation and translation services.
“Working as an interpreter or translator is a family tradition, which my brother Cyrus has followed by starting a company in Finland in 2010. As the company was growing, we realised the need for a digital management tool for interpretation and translation orders. So, we built Lingsom for our own use, but quickly realised that it could be beneficial to the whole language service industry,” says Sohrab, who relocated from Vancouver, Canada to Finland to work with Lingsom.
Lingsom the company was founded in Finland in 2019. It is now looking to grow its business from Gothenburg, where it has moved into a new office space at Lindholmen. It expects to employ around 10 people within a year, within product development, and sales and marketing.
To help with its growth journey, the young company has partnered up with IBM Sweden and Shibuya. It will also take part in IBM and Shibuya’s accelerator programme in Gothenburg, which it found through Business Region Göteborg.
“IBM and Shibuya provide a huge rainbow of services to both the public and private sectors, and have an excellent roadmap for growth. Partnering with them is highly valuable for Lingsom as they advise us on different aspects of marketing and sales, and provide our clients with non-functional features of a SAAS [software as a service] business,” says Sohrab.
“I am so excited to see what the future will hold,” he adds.
Establishing operations in Gothenburg
To streamline both the setting up of its new operations and becoming part of Gothenburg’s business ecosystem, Lingsom has been in regular contact with our investment advisor Kent Jellmund and International House Gothenburg.
“Since our first contact, the service has been professional, personable and welcoming. We have been introduced to relevant connections and had assistance finding office and living space. We have also received help to integrate into beautiful Gothenburg, not only as a business, but also as a resident,” says Sohrab.
“Lingsom has a very interesting technology and together with Sohrab’s entrepreneurial spirit they have a strong possibility to succeed. We are very glad that they decided to establish operations in our region,” says Kent Jellmund.
Did you know…
• ICT is one of Gothenburg’s key sectors and it employs 43,000 people in the region.
• The Gothenburg region has around 100 testbeds, more than anywhere else in Sweden.
• Gothenburg has a fast-growing tech scene with over 700 tech startups, 15,000 startup employees and 16 VC investors in the county.
Learn more