Bird & Bird advised Index Ventures on $300 million investment round of DeepL at $2 billion valuation

International law firm Bird & Bird advised Index Ventures as lead investor on the $300 million investment round of DeepL, a leading German-based Language AI company, at a $2 billion valuation. Additional late-stage investors, including ICONIQ Growth, Teachers’ Venture Growth, and others, also participated, along with existing investors IVP, Atomico, and WiL.

That Index Ventures engaged Bird & Bird for the legal due diligence review of DeepL's business operations reflects Bird & Bird's strong focus on tech transactions and its deep understanding of software and artificial intelligence related businesses. The firm's highly specialised expertise combined with its multinational approach provided Index Ventures with the necessary insight and assessment of DeepL's business operations from a legal perspective.

The new investment comes during a period of significant growth and momentum for DeepL, which has amassed a customer network of 100,000+ businesses, governments, and other organisations worldwide. In response to surging demand from global enterprises, DeepL has accelerated its expansion efforts and strategic investments into key markets over the past year. In January 2024, DeepL deepened its commitment to the U.S. – now its third largest market – by opening its first office in the region. Within the last 12 months, DeepL has also substantially broadened its product offerings tailored for businesses. The company launched DeepL Write Pro, a writing assistant specifically tailored for business writing, powered by its own proprietary LLM technology. It also continues to expand the range of languages supported by its platform with the recent additions of Arabic, as well as Korean and Norwegian, bringing its total number of languages to 32.

Lead partner Dr. Marc Seeger stated: “It was a pleasure to support our client on this exciting project which required our team to deep-dive into all relevant legal aspects of a leading AI-based business model and to showcase our deep understanding thereof. The expertise of our AI-focused commercial team was equally impressive and valuable for the client and the other investors.”

Index Ventures has been advised by the following Bird & Bird lawyers: partner Dr. Marc Seeger (lead, Frankfurt), Counsel Andrea Schlote (Munich), associate Felix Spindler, LL.M. (Dusseldorf, all Corporate/M&A), partner Dr. Miriam Ballhausen and associates Alexandre Franke and Fiona Gawlik (all Commercial/Tech & Comms, Hamburg), Counsel Oliver Belitz (Commercial/AI, Frankfurt), Counsel Dr. Nils Lölfing (Data Protection/AI, Dusseldorf), associate Dr. Simon Hembt (Intellectual Property/AI, Frankfurt), partner Dr. Simon Assion (Data Protection, Frankfurt), senior Counsel Elie Kaufman, LL.M. and associate Finja Schlingmann (both Real Estate, Frankfurt), partner Dr. Artur-Konrad Wypych and associate Dr. Karina Bischoff (both Employment, Dusseldorf), partner Dr. Michael Jünemann and associates Julia Fröhder and Timo Förster (all Finance & Financial Regulation, Frankfurt), Counsel Moritz Neidel (Patents, Hamburg), associate Rick Wendler (Trademarks, Dusseldorf), as well as partner Mark Rundall (Corporate/M&A, London), partner Ludomir Biedecki (Corporate/M&A, Warsaw), partner Pauline Vos (Corporate/M&A, The Hague) and their teams.