Storytelling app Wattpad raises $51M at a $398M valuation
Summary
Last year, the company added video (a crowded market, considering the huge elephant called YouTube in the room), and a paid subscription tier , and today said that it’s keen to do more across the board, in TV, film, digital media and publishing.It includes Tencent (owner of WeChat and a big investor in Snapchat and generally a huge player in digital media in China); Kickstart Ventures, which is part of Globe Telecom out of the Philippines (where Wattpad has been popular for years); and the Peterson Group out of Hong Kong.While one side of Wattpad’s business is based on work that people upload to the platform, it’s also tied in with a few big names both in terms of sourcing material and then subsequent distribution both in print and in video.Back in 2007 when it was just starting out, it inked a deal to distribute 17,000 titles on mobile from the Project Gutenberg ; and it partnerships with NBCUniversal’s Universal Cable Productions (UCP) , eOne and CW Seed.There have been a number of companies in the wider media space that have reached lofty valuations on big hopes of disrupting the world by mixing in tech alongside compelling content; but some of that has not quite played out how founders and investors have expected .