Lionbridge was built by buying translation shops around the world and joining them into one partner. Every new market a software company entered needed its own language, date formats and manuals. Lionbridge did that work, translating and testing products for global release. When it filed to go public in the summer of 1999, the web was making every company international overnight. Someone had to make their products speak to the world.

From Cottage Industry Upward

Rory Cowan founded Lionbridge in 1996, building it partly by acquiring translation businesses worldwide. He bet that localization would grow from a small cottage industry into a core service for global companies. Lionbridge offered one partner for translation, engineering and testing across many languages, with teams in lower-cost locations. As the web spread, websites joined software as a core part of the work.

Bowne, Then H.I.G.

Lionbridge priced at $10 a share in August 1999. It survived the downturn and grew by acquisition. Its biggest deal was the 2005 purchase of Bowne Global Solutions, which made it one of the largest companies in its field. It added testing and data services for technology companies. In 2017 H.I.G. Capital took Lionbridge private in a deal worth about $360 million. It remains a large localization company.

Cover: Lion of the Atlas Mountains, Eugène Delacroix. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a lion in the mountains (the lion of Lionbridge).