Allen Lau

Whenever I speak with VCs about the next Canadian company they think will blow up on the global stage, the first word out of their mouth is usually "Wattpad." With over 40 million users and 125 million stories uploaded to the storytelling social platform, Wattpad might already be there.

On the most recent episode of BNN's The Disruptors, Wattpad CEO Allen Lau spoke with Amber Kanwar about how the company can monetize its hockey stick growth. While Lau claimed that getting Wattpad profitable "doesn't make sense right now,"

Wattpad, which lets authors share their stories with a community of readers, has attracted lots of interest from investors, having most recently raised a $46 million Series C. It's also seeing impressive user engagement - the company says that 27 million of its 30 million users are active each month.

But founder and CEO Allen Lau noted that until recently, Wattpad hasn't done much to monetize that activity, aside from experiments with crowdfunded self-publishing. Well, that's changing. The company has launched its first native ad campaign and is lining up more.

Wattpad announced a massive $46 million third round of financing this morning, saying it would use the cash to expand its team and boost product development.

The social reading platform already has 25 million users who spend six billion minutes a month on the platform, the company said, which means Wattpad has doubled in size over the past year. All content on the system is contributed for free by writers looking to build their audience.

Eighteen million readers and writers around the world spend 4.5-billion minutes a month publishing, collaborating and skimming text on Wattpad, the biggest under-the-radar e-literature community on the web.

The Toronto-based startup is a free publishing and reading platform allowing wordsmiths to share and collaborate on stories. It's probably the most active social site you've never heard of.

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