Wattpad operates a user-generated storytelling platform that hosts more than 4 million stories and reports over 2.6 million monthly users. The company relies on human curation and its Story DNA machine-learning system to identify standout stories. Wattpad is focused on turning platform stories into books, TV shows, movies and other digital projects and recently launched its own books division to better capitalize on print. It has been expanding in Asia, including recent partnerships such as Huayi Brothers Korea and new hires like Dexter Ong as head of Asia for Wattpad Studios and Devashish Sharma as GM of India. Wattpad has localized its app into multiple Indian languages, including Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Assamese, Marathi and Oriya, to grow its footprint. The company previously raised $51 million from Tencent and is pursuing further growth in India through strategic partnerships and investments. Wattpad is a storytelling and reading/viewing app that mixes crowdsourced stories with professionally produced material and data-driven discovery. The company uses machine learning to match creators with readers and to identify trending stories for further development. It has invested in video and launched a paid subscription tier, and plans to expand into TV, film, digital media and publishing. Wattpad reported its community grew over 40% in 2017 and now has 65 million users globally with 400 million story uploads. The company has partnership deals with NBCUniversal’s Universal Cable Productions, eOne, CW Seed and publishers including HarperCollins and Hachette. Wattpad is led by co-founders Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen and is based in Toronto, Canada. Wattpad operates a social publishing network where users post and read serialized stories and interact through feedback and support. The platform has grown to around 25 million monthly active users, up from six or seven million at the prior raise, and users spend a cumulative total of over 6 billion minutes per month on the site. Content creation is intense — users upload roughly one chapter every half second (about 150,000 uploads per day), translating to roughly ten hours of reading uploaded every minute. Wattpad has begun experimenting with monetization, including a Fan Funding crowdfunding pilot for books and some revenue from search, but management is prioritizing user growth over immediate monetization. The company plans to use new funding to hire product developers and community staff and to accelerate international expansion, with hiring focused in its hometown of Toronto. Wattpad is also preparing new product developments, particularly on mobile, to drive the next stage of growth. Wattpad is an online community for discovering and sharing stories that builds communities around genres such as mystery, romance, sci-fi, poetry and fan fiction. Led by CEO Allen Lau, the platform provides collaborative entertainment connecting readers and writers. The company reports 10 million monthly unique users. Wattpad said it will use new funding to expand its team through hiring and to pursue acquisitions. It also plans to enhance its product and grow its community. The company is based in Toronto, Canada. Wattpad is a social publishing platform that lets writers upload novels chapter by chapter for free and engage directly with readers, who can provide feedback that shapes stories. Users are collectively uploading 500,000 new stories per month, and the site hosts 5 million stories. Wattpad attracts more than 8 million monthly visitors who now spend 1.7 billion minutes per month on the site, with over 70% of usage on mobile. Co-founder and CEO Allen Lau describes Wattpad as creating a new digital entertainment category driven by networked discovery rather than traditional publishing hierarchies. The company emphasizes community-driven content and has shown accelerating growth in both content creation and engagement. Wattpad previously raised a $3.5 million Series A, underscoring its earlier funding progress.

Total raised

$116M

Funding rounds

7

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Jan 2018