Inkitt founder Ali Abazaz
In 2017, we led the Seed round for Inkitt (Redalpine Capital III), backing Ali and his team to bring data-driven publishing to an industry relying upon editorial whims and subjectivity. By now, the company has grown into a hugely successful enabler in the global creator economy for authors, complete with their own publishing ecosystem, from sourcing and evaluating potential blockbusters to proprietary distribution on its flagship, immersive reading app, Galatea.
Today, the company has announced a further milestone with their $59m Series B financing round, led by Scott Sandell, Managing General Partner of NEA. Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, Michael Lynton, Chairman of Snap and former CEO of Penguin Books, and Stefan von Holtzbrinck, chairman of Holtzbrinck publishing group, also took part in the round alongside existing investors Redalpine, Kleiner Perkins, HV Capital, and Speedinvest.
Sandell and Döpfner, who is also a member of Netflix’s Board of Directors, will join Inkitt’s advisory board. The new funding will be used to continue Inkitt’s growth and global expansion. This comes as part of a strategic plan to become the ‘Disney of the 21st Century’ - which will mean expanding into new genres and adding new media formats, on Inkitt’s journey to becoming a globally leading source and distributor of multichannel, full-spectrum content.
Inkitt will also continue to invest in its team, with particular focus on hiring US-based talent. The company already has an 80-strong team of passionate and experienced engineers, marketers and product, content and publishing experts, including hires from Netflix, N26, Blizzard, Babbel, Glovo and Yandex.
Berlin-based Inkitt has developed an algorithm to better identify high-potential stories and writers by analyzing reading behavior. The company is at the forefront of predictive data-driven software fueled by their proprietary algorithms that are constantly evolving and developing as more readers and writers join Inkitt. The unique approach has resulted in Inkitt having a significantly higher hit rate discovering debut authors than traditional publishing and media houses.
Today the Inkitt community counts 7 million users and 300,000 writers from all over the world. Users are spending the equivalent amount of 400 years reading on Inkitt’s platforms every month.
We congratulate the entire Inkitt team on this closing and look forward to the next steps together.
For more information, please visit Inkitt’s website or read this Techcrunch article.
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