Investment agency probes Unbabel over €13.3 million funding

Portugal’s Agency for Competitiveness and Innovation IAPMEI is investigating the multilingual translation services company Unbabel over its use of €13.3 million of Recovery and Resilience Plan funding as the company falls under official receivers.

IAPMEI is analysing documents presented by Unbabel that aim to prove the completion of its projects linked to the Center for Responsible AI consortium.
In case of non-completion, the company, which was recently declared insolvent, will have to return the amounts invested from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP). Unbabel received €13.3 million as part of this consortium.

In August last year, of the 21 projects to be carried out by June 2026 by the Center for Responsible AI consortium, only two had been completed and none of them were from the then leader of the consortium, financed by more than €50 million euros from the RRP.

Four projects involving the Portuguese scale-up Unbabel, a company that had been purchased by the American company TransPerfect, were “ongoing”, stated IAPMEI, based on information relating to the 2nd quarter of 2025.

The purchase of Unbabel’s assets by Transperfect led to a change in leadership in the consortium, which was taken over by Sword Health, the second company that most benefited from the RRP within the consortium which has a total of 21 projects (PPS).

The sale of Unbabel resulted in some investors losing practically all of their investments — the company had raised around €100 million over the years.

In December last year, the Buenavista Equity Partners fund took out a lawsuit in São Paulo against Unbabel over the loss of €12.75 million. The case also involved a court in Portugal.

The lawsuit involves an objection that allows creditors to legally challenge contracts entered into by debtors that result in harm to the legitimate interests of the creditors. In other words the investor is trying to claw back the money.

This lawsuit forced Unbabel into official receivership through the courts and the company was declared insolvent on March 10.

Within the scope of the consortium, to carry out the four PPS, Unbabel was entitled to financing of €14.8 million, having received €13.3 million or 89.6% of the financing, according to the Transparency Portal.

This amount that will have to be returned if the projects are not completed by the scheduled date: June 30, 2026. But if the company is bankrupt how is the money to be repaid and from where?

Source: ECO Online; Credits: