DeepL, the German translation company, announced in June 2026 the acquisition of Mixhalo, a San Francisco-based real-time audio streaming startup. The deal expands DeepL’s translation suite into live events and conferences, and will prompt the company to open its first Bay Area office to grow its U.S. operations.
Mixhalo was founded in 2016 by Incubus guitarist Mike Einziger, violinist Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger, and CEO Vik Singh. Originally built to improve the listening experience for concert attendees, the company shifted over time toward powering real-time audio for sports and live events. It raised more than $39 million from investors including Fortress Investment, Founders Fund, Defy Partners, and Cowboy Ventures.
The acquisition grew out of an existing customer relationship. Mixhalo had been using DeepL as its primary translation provider, and Singh said the conversation with DeepL began when he was seated next to DeepL CTO Sebastian at a customer dinner. “The more we talked, the more obvious the overlap became across the event space, the API, and the application layer,” Singh said.
Singh noted that while the rise of voice AI models benefited Mixhalo by offering more options to integrate, larger model companies were beginning to “encroach” on its market, making it harder to compete on pricing — a factor that made closer alignment with DeepL a practical move.
DeepL CEO Jarek Kutylowski said Mixhalo will serve both as a product and a demonstration platform. “The platform will allow us to show how DeepL’s tech works in real-time and in environments like conferences where people are present on the ground,” he said.
DeepL launched voice-to-text translation in over 33 languages in 2024, and added a voice-to-voice translation suite in April 2026 for use cases such as multilingual meetings. The Mixhalo acquisition could extend those capabilities into live event settings. Mixhalo competes with Wordly AI and Palabra, which is backed by Seven Seven Six.
Source: TechCrunch