Press Release: BookBub Raises $3.8 Million in Series A Funding

BookBub today announced it has raised $3.8 million in Series A funding. Investors include NextView Ventures, Founder Collective, Avalon Ventures, and Bloomberg Beta.

The company, which helps readers discover limited-time deals on acclaimed ebooks, has tripled in size since early last year and is nearing 3 million members. All of the Big Five publishers, leading mid-sized and small publishing houses, and thousands of bestselling independent authors have collectively featured more than 10,000 ebook deals through BookBub. Members purchase more than one million ebooks per month as a result of the service, a number that does not include the significant number of free ebooks also downloaded. In total, BookBub is driving millions of dollars in ebook sales each month.

"BookBub's traction proves it's filling a huge need for readers, authors, and publishers," said David Beisel, partner at NextView Ventures. "We meet with countless startups, but it's uncommon to find one that has become such a meaningful part of an industry so early in its existence."

BookBub is profitable and has been bootstrapped since launching in 2012. The funding is the first external capital raised by the company, and will be used for growing its team more rapidly, expanding internationally, and launching additional products for its members and partners.

"Since starting BookBub, our dual goals have always been to help readers discover great books and to provide publishers and authors an effective way to get their books discovered," said Josh Schanker, BookBub's president and co-founder. "A daily email featuring deals on ebooks is part of that mission, but we believe it's just the beginning for BookBub, so we've raised money to widen our scope."

"The global publishing industry spends more than $10 billion annually on sales and marketing," said Eric Paley, managing partner at Founder Collective. "As ebook usage grows worldwide, authors and publishers are shifting more of their resources towards direct-to-consumer promotion, and BookBub is thriving at the center of this transition."