Inkling, a US-based interactive digital book publisher, has established new strategic agreements with Netherlands-based publisher Elsevier and also with UK-based publisher Pearson, an existing investor in Inkling, to adopt Inkling’s cloud publishing platform Inkling Habitat for digital content development.
The publishing partnerships follow Inkling’s recent $16m series C funding led by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital’s Growth Fund, with additional support from Sequoia Capital’s Venture Fund and other existing investors, including venture capital investors Felicis Ventures, Tenaya Capital and Jafco Technology Partners.
Matt MacInnis, founder and chief executive officer of Inkling, said: “The two largest publishers in the world have adopted Inkling to build their next-generation learning and reference platforms. In just four months since launching, Inkling Habitat is becoming the standard for how people build digital content.”
Bryan Schreier, partner at Sequoia Capital, said: “Inkling is clearly leading the transformation in digital publishing. We studied the industry, and it was clear that only Inkling’s platform could deliver the full promise of interactive books to both publishers and consumers. They’ve set the standard.”
Inkling is reported now to have raised $49m since being founded in 2009. Previously, Inkling raised $17m in a series B round announced in August 2011, led by venture capital firm Tenaya Capital and supported by Pearson Education (a unit of Pearson), Jafco Ventures and Sequoia Capital, In March 2011, Inkling said it had raised undisclosed funds from Pearson and McGraw-Hill. In August 2010, a year after its launch in 2009, Inkling raised its series A round from venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, Kapor Capital, Felicis Ventures and Sherpalo Ventures – the amount was undisclosed.