145+ languages spoken in Houston. 29% of residents foreign-born. One app built here to bridge every conversation — at the Texas Medical Center, on a job site, or in an HISD classroom.
Our story
Puente started at a BJJ gym in Houston. Labyrinth BJJ LLC — the company behind the app — was training alongside teammates who spoke Spanish, Portuguese, and Mandarin. Every time someone got hurt, or needed to explain a technique, or just wanted to connect, there was a wall.
Google Translate was too slow. Interpreter services cost $1.50–$3.50 per minute. And nothing ran offline when the gym's Wi-Fi went down. So we built Puente — a real-time voice translator that works the way a real conversation does: fast, back-and-forth, no typing.
We launched it quietly. No press release. No VC pitch deck. We put it on the App Store, told people in the Gulfton area about it, and watched what happened. Turns out, Houston needed this more than anywhere.
"Houston is the most diverse city in America — and somehow everyone's still carrying around paper cards with 'do you speak English?' on them. We wanted to change that."— Labyrinth BJJ LLC, Houston, TX
Puente means "bridge" in Spanish. It's the right name for a city where 145+ languages are spoken in a single school district.
Houston's language reality
Houston ISD is the second-largest school district in the United States, with students from 160+ countries. Nearly 1 in 4 Houston residents has limited English proficiency. That's not a problem to be solved — it's a community to be connected.
Houston use cases
The TMC serves 10 million+ patients per year across 60+ institutions. An estimated 21% of those patients have limited English proficiency. At Ben Taub, Memorial Hermann, UTHealth, and HCA clinics throughout Gulfton, nurses and doctors spend critical minutes tracking down phone interpreters — or worse, relying on family members to translate diagnoses.
Puente runs directly on the clinician's iPhone. No headset. No hold music. No $2/minute charge to the patient. HIPAA-aligned architecture means no audio is ever stored, no PHI leaves the device.
Read the medical guide →Works with 109 languages. Runs offline in hospital basements (Whisper AI, no cell signal needed).
HISD is the second-largest school district in the US. Parents at schools in Gulfton, Sharpstown, and the East End regularly show up to conferences speaking Amharic, Vietnamese, Spanish, Arabic, or Tigrinya — while teachers have no interpreter budget. Districts spend thousands on Language Line minutes every semester.
Puente's Tabletop mode sets the phone between parent and teacher, auto-detects the language, and translates both directions in real time. No IT setup. No district contract required. A teacher can download it for free before the 3pm bell.
Phone sits flat between speakers. Auto-detects language. Both sides talk naturally — no passing the phone.
Houston has one of the largest construction workforces in the country, driving the Port of Houston expansion, the I-69 corridor, and ongoing energy sector turnarounds. The majority of field crews are Spanish-speaking. Every OSHA safety briefing, every subcontractor handoff, and every emergency evacuation depends on clear communication.
Puente's Smart Glasses and bone conduction modes mean workers don't have to take off gloves to operate it. The Trades Pack adds OSHA-specific vocabulary for $2.99 — one time.
Read the construction guide →Designed for workers who can't look at a screen. Smart Glasses mode + bone conduction support.
Gulfton is one of the most linguistically diverse zip codes in the United States — a neighborhood where Spanish, Arabic, Vietnamese, and Amharic are all spoken on the same block. The Mahatma Gandhi District along Hillcroft is home to Houston's South Asian community. Chinatown on Bellaire stretches for miles. These neighborhoods don't lack diversity — they lack bridges.
Puente's Remote mode lets someone in Gulfton connect with a family member back in Guatemala City via a 6-digit code — real-time, voice-to-voice, without paying international call rates or interpreter fees.
Share a 6-digit code. Family member joins from anywhere. Real-time voice translation, no app download required on their end.
Language coverage
Every language Houston speaks, from the most common to the ones no other translator supports. Eight languages run entirely on-device — no Wi-Fi, no cell signal, no problem.
Offline-capable (Whisper AI)
Also supported (DeepL Voice engine)
Pricing
Language Line charges $1.50–$3.50 per minute. An average clinic interpreter call runs 12 minutes. Puente charges $49/month for an entire team.
Profession Packs (Medical, Legal, Trades, Restaurant, Education, Finance, Emergency, Childcare, Biblical) — $2.99 each, one-time purchase.
We built a full Spanish-language page for Houston's Mexican-American and Central American community — covering parent-teacher conferences, medical appointments, and staying connected with family in Mexico and Guatemala.
FAQ
Get started
Free. No account. 5 translations per day just to see if it works. Built in Houston, for Houston.
iOS only · Free (5/day) · Pro $9.99 lifetime · No account required