NZ company Booktrack raises US$5m in funding

New Zealand company Booktrack, which adds soundtracks and ‘ambient audio’ to ebooks and sells them from its website, has received US$5m (A$6.87m) in funding from investors COENT Centure Partners and Sparkbox Ventures.

The funding comes on top of US$3m (A$4.12m) in financing raised by the company in 2014. In a statement, Booktrack said the funding will be used to ‘drive rapid growth through marketing innovation, the acquisition of premium content and allowing any publisher, self-publisher or musician to create and sell Booktrack titles through the Booktrack marketplace’.

Booktrack, which offers around 15,000 titles, works with publishers to add ‘a synchronized movie-style soundtrack to an ebook’, with the audio paced to the individual’s reading speed. Books are sold on the Booktrack website, with revenue split between the company and the publishers.

‘Booktrack is creating a new marketplace for authors, publishers and musicians to create soundtracks for their ebooks and reach a new audience of more than 2.5 million readers while earning new revenue streams,’ said Booktrack CEO Paul Cameron.

The company has offices in Toronto, San Francisco and Auckland. For more information, visit the Booktrack website here.

Category: Local news