OMERS Ventures Joins Wattpad Series B Financing Round
Proceeds to Help Expand Wattpad's Team Through Hiring and Acquisitions
(firmenpresse) - TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwire) -- 09/18/12 -- Wattpad, the world's largest online community for discovering and sharing stories is announcing an investment from OMERS Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of OMERS, one of Canada's largest pension funds.
A leading venture capital investor, OMERS Ventures has joined Wattpad's existing investors which include top-tier VC funds Khosla Ventures of San Francisco, Union Square Ventures of New York and Golden Venture Partners of Toronto.
"We see this as the ideal trifecta, having world-class investment partners from Silicon Valley, New York and Toronto," said Wattpad CEO Allen Lau. "OMERS Ventures and our other investors will be true partners in our vision for building a company that will transform the publishing ecosystem."
Wattpad provides collaborative entertainment that connects readers and writers by building communities around stories. This month the total number of stories posted online topped the 6 million mark, with 900,000 new stories now being uploaded every month. Wattpad has 10 million monthly unique users, and the number of minutes spent on the site has more than doubled in just six months to 2.4 billion in August.
"It's astonishing when you grasp the ability Wattpad has to fundamentally transform the very nature of a book by adding a real time, mobile social dynamic to the storytelling process. We're not only excited to be an investor, we're also extremely proud that this homegrown Canadian company has such a huge global following and growth prospects," said Howard Gwin, Managing Director of OMERS Ventures.
Due to the company's rapid growth, Wattpad will use funding proceeds to further expand its team and bring in new talent through hiring and acquisitions. They will also focus on product enhancements and expanding their community.
About Wattpad
Wattpad is the world's largest community of readers and writers. Every day millions of people discover great fiction on Wattpad and share their own creative writing spanning mystery, romance, sci-fi, poetry, fan fiction and more. Wattpad's mobile-first model of storytelling brings "web speed" to the publishing industry to remove barriers and build communities around content. Wattpad stories are social at their core, free, collaborative, and convenient - available on the devices people already have in their pockets. .
About OMERS Ventures
OMERS Ventures (Twitter: (at)OMERSVentures) is the venture capital investment arm of OMERS, one of Canada's largest pension funds with $55.1 billion in net assets. It is an initiative of OMERS Strategic Investments (OSI), an investment entity with a mandate to build long-term strategic relationships with like-minded partners. As both an institutional angel investor and a later-stage investor, OMERS Ventures is looking for successful companies with significant growth potential and market opportunities. We are seeking like-minded partners with a shared vision of building a vibrant and successful knowledge economy. For more information please visit .
Contacts:
Wattpad
Amy Martin
Product Marketing Manager
1-416-906-0839
OMERS Ventures
Lori McLeod
Director, Media Relations
1-416-369-2399
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Datum: 18.09.2012 - 13:00 Uhr
Sprache: Deutsch
News-ID 184375
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