Flipboard is a mobile-first social magazine platform that allows individuals, publications and brands to create and share curated magazines from web content. Version 2.0 introduced user- and brand-created magazines, and the company reports about 3.5 million magazines on the platform. CEO Mike McCue says Flipboard is adding at least 200,000 new users per day (sometimes 250,000–300,000) and that mobile remains the primary source of traffic. The company monetizes via advertising (brands cited include Gucci and Louis Vuitton), sells ads on behalf of publishers and supports publisher paywalls for outlets like the Financial Times and the New York Times. McCue declined to give a revenue figure but described monetization as "very good" and said financing will be used to scale sales and drive revenue. Planned product and market moves include finalizing a Windows 8 app and expanding more international versions and local curation by the end of the year. Flipboard is an iPad news‑reading app known for its magazine‑like presentation of publisher content and was the No. 2 free iPad app at the time of the article. CEO Mike McCue said the company raised $50 million to reach cashflow positive and to scale toward tens of millions of users. The company planned to expand its engineering headcount from about 32 to roughly 50–60 people and to sign up many more publishers (currently 17; target 100–150) to build an advertising business. McCue estimated operating costs—including staff and network support for as many as 40 million readers—could reach about $20 million per year. Flipboard intends to keep publishers selling their own ads rather than building its own ad salesforce. The team is preparing for international and multi‑platform expansion as part of its growth strategy. Flipboard is a Palo Alto, California–based social magazine designed for the iPad that provides an engaging way to discover, view and share content from social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. The company raised $10.5M in a Series A venture round to fund growth and product development. Parts of the funds were used to acquire Ellerdale, a real-time web intelligence company that offers advanced semantic analysis of large, real-time data streams. Flipboard intends to use Ellerdale's technology to extract, categorize and feature hot trending content from across a variety of social networks. The acquisition signals a focus on real-time content curation and trend detection as a product priority. Arthur van Hoff, a leading Silicon Valley technologist, will become Flipboard’s Chief Technology Officer.

Total raised

$111M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Sep 2013