Wattpad
 |
|
| Type of business | Private |
|---|---|
|
Type of site
|
Reading app, Social networking service |
| Headquarters | Toronto, Canada |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Owner | WP Technology, Inc. |
| Founder(s) | Allen Lau Ivan Yuen |
| Employees | 96 |
| Website | wattpad |
| Alexa rank |
 641 (January 2017[update]) |
| Registration | Required to read, create and modify books and stories |
| Launched | November 2006 |
| Current status | Active |
Wattpad is an online storytelling community where users post written works such as articles, stories, fan fiction, and poems, either through the website or the mobile app. The user-generated content is submitted by writers of all levels who are given an equal chance to write popular works. Users are able to comment and like stories or join groups associated with the website. Around half of the users are US based; other users come from the UK, Canada, the Philippines, Australia, Russia, Libya, Jamaica, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, India and other countries.
Wattpad originated in 2006, as the result of a collaboration between Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen.
In February 2007, Wattpad announced the addition of over 17,000 e-books from Project Gutenberg making them available to mobile users. According to a June 2009 Wattpad press release, the mobile application had been downloaded over 5 million times. In March 2009, an iPhone version was released. This was followed by the launch on BlackBerry App World in April 2009, Google Android in June 2009 and Apple iPad in April 2010. In December 2015, Windows Phone 8.1 and Windows 10 Mobile Version was released. Currently, Wattpad is being used by more than 45 million people.
To date, Wattpad has received almost $70M in funding from investors. In 2011, Wattpad announced that it received $3.5M in total funding from its current investors, and from W Media Ventures, Golden Venture Partners, and Union Square Ventures, which is an early investor in "Twitter, Tumblr and other social-media success stories." Then in June 2012, Wattpad raised $17.3M from a group of venture funds led by Khosla Ventures.
The latest round of financing happened in April 2014, where Wattpad announced $46M in Series C funding led by OMERS ventures.
In December 2011, Toronto-based Wattpad was selected as the hottest Digital Media company in the country at the Canadian Innovation Exchange. In the same year, co-founder and CEO Ivan Yuen was also recognized as a top Canadian entrepreneur at the Impact Infused Awards, sponsored by Deloitte.
In March 2014, Wattpad signed a contract with Pop Fiction, an imprint of Summit Media, to print Filipino Wattpad stories in the Philippines. Other publishers from the Philippines also publish stories from Wattpad.
Since then, some Wattpad stories have also been adapted into numerous teleseries. Filipino television network TV5, in partnership with Wattpad and Life is Beautiful Publishing Company launched Wattpad Presents, a series of Wattpad stories turned into TV dramas. (Wattpad stories aired on the show are usually those that were published by LIB Publishing.)
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