Germany-based online publishing platform Inkitt has secured $59m in a series B round co-led by publishing company Axel Springer at a $390m valuation, TechCrunch reported yesterday.
New Enterprise Associates co-led the round, which also featured HV Capital, the venture capital firm backed by publisher Holtzbrinck, as well as Kleiner Perkins, Redalpine, Speedinvest and private investors Michael Lynton and Stefan von Holtzbrinck.
Inkitt allows writers to publish samples of their stories on its online platform. They may then be analysed and expanded into longer works through a paid sister app, Galatea.
The company boasts some 300,000 writers and 7 million readers, an increase from the 110,000 writers and 1.6 million users it had at the time of its $16m series A round in August 2019.
The 2019 round was led by Kleiner Perkins and included HV Capital (then HV Holtzbrinck Ventures), Xploration Capital, Speedinvest, Earlybird, Redalpine and Itai Tsiddon. It came after Redalpine led a $3.9m pre-series A round in 2017 featuring Frontline Ventures, Speedinvest and several individuals.
