EU Language Law with Professor Stefaan van der Jeught

 

Stefaan van der Jeught, Professor of EU Constitutional Law at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and a Press Officer at the Court of Justice of the European Union, joins SlatorPod to talk about the complex relationship between language and law in the EU.

Stefaan outlines the historical evolution of EU language policy, from French-only founding treaties to the gradual inclusion of all member state languages. Despite formal equality, institutions largely define their own internal language regimes, leading to fragmented and often English-centric practices. 

Stefaan’s book EU Language Law, now in its second edition, examines these issues in depth. Updated with new case law, legislation, and developments in AI and governance, it includes a 10-point roadmap for reform. Stefaan advocates for greater transparency, legal protection of linguistic diversity, and a constitutional debate on the role of language in EU integration.

AI, Stefaan believes, is a tool that can enhance multilingual access and consistency across EU communications. However, he cautions against using AI as a cost-cutting measure that replaces linguistic expertise. Instead, AI should serve as a support tool, with human revision, especially in legal contexts.

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On regional languages like Catalan, Basque, and Galician, Stefaan notes they face legal hurdles at the EU level because they lack full legislative status in their home countries. He argues for a more transparent and constitutional debate on language policy, drawing inspiration from multilingual countries like Switzerland and Belgium.

Stefaan concludes by advising universities to train future legal linguists by going beyond technical instruction to foster critical thinking, comparative law expertise, and cultural literacy.

What Are Language Solutions Integrators and Language Technology Platforms?

 

Florian and Esther welcome Slator’s Anna Wyndham and Alex Edwards to SlatorPod to explain the rationale behind the new industry framework introduced in the Slator 2025 Language Industry Market Report.

Drawing from the flagship report and echoing the buzz of SlatorCon London, the team explains why the traditional labels, Language Service Providers (LSPs) and Translation Management Systems (TMSs), no longer capture the scope and complexity of the evolving market. Instead, Slator has introduced two new terms: Language Solutions Integrators (LSIs) and Language Technology Platforms (LTPs).

Anna defines LTPs as pure-play technology providers that develop language tools, applications, orchestration platforms, and AI models. LSIs, she explains, are organizations whose core offering is to deliver fit-for-purpose multilingual content solutions by integrating language technology and AI with human experts as part of a fully managed solution.

Esther confirms early advisory adoption of the terms, noting investor interest in clearer tech-service distinctions. Alex adds that automatic dubbing startups tend to fit LTPs better than LSPs, as they often operate self-serve AI platforms.

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Anna clarifies that big tech players like OpenAI and Google are excluded from the market sizing as they are foundational enablers, not language-focused businesses. The team also discusses why the term “AI” was excluded from the new categories as it may become as ubiquitous as “Cloud”.

To close, Anna points out that LSIs currently capture the bigger portion of the total addressable market (TAM). The team sees a strong demand for expert-in-the-loop services and growing LTP–LSI partnerships.

Grammarly Raises a Billion in Financing Tied to Revenue Growth

Known as much for its flagship write-assist offering as for ubiquitous advertising, the Grammarly Editor platform raised USD 1bn from General Catalyst‘s Customer Value Fund. The funds will operate like a loan or credit line with capped returns tied to revenue, rather than an equity stake.

The financing, announced on X on May 29, 2025, by the company’s current CEO, Shishir Mehrotra, is structured in a way that allows General Catalyst to increase their investment in Grammarly without diluting ownership by issuing new shares to other investors — according to Reuters.

The Reuters article also said the capital is intended to support and accelerate Grammarly’s growth through increased spending on sales, marketing, and strategic acquisitions. The investment is also expected to allow 16-year-old Grammarly to reallocate funds towards product development, particularly expanding its AI-driven offerings with communication-centric tools and integrated external applications, Reuters reported.

Mehrotra, who founded the AI collaborative platform Coda, said in an interview with Reuters that “Grammarly is going through a huge transformation… from being what is mostly known as a single-purpose agent to being an agent platform.” Coda completed a merger with Grammarly in January 2025.

“Grammarly is going through a huge transformation… from being what is mostly known as a single-purpose agent to being an agent platform.” — Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Grammarly

This is not General Catalyst’s first show of faith in Grammarly. The firm led a USD 90m investment round in 2019 and likely propelled the Coda acquisition by being an investor in both companies.

Slator 2024 Language Industry M&A and Funding Report

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Reflecting on the deal, podcasters from “This Week in Startups” (TWIST) remarked that “SaaS is a difficult business and maybe [General Catalyst] thought ‘hey we could put these two companies together [and] have a stronger company.’ This will help increase the value of the company… so if they have some LPs [Limited Partners] who want to get a return on capital you get the double benefit — you’re loaning them money instead of having them take the money from a bank, so it’s all in the family.”

As a SaaS company, Grammarly faces potential headwinds, according to the TWIST podcast. The impact of AI tools, for example, could lead to a need for SaaS companies to re-evaluate pricing models, potentially moving away from per-seat to a consumption model, which historically has not been popular.

As of Q2 2025, Grammarly is a profitable at-scale business with an annualized revenue of more than USD 700m, supported by an individual user base estimated at 40 million and over 50,000 Grammarly Business accounts.

Mehrotra does not discount a future IPO: “I’m right now just focused on making sure we’re innovating with new products, growing as fast as we can. But when we feel ready, we’ll go public,” he told Reuters.

The investment underscores strong confidence in the company’s proven AI expertise and deep understanding of language, particularly given General Catalyst’s track record of backing companies with reliable revenue models (including the Viva Translate platform). 

According to PitchBook, Grammarly was valued at USD 13bn as far back as 2021.