Aiming to enhance its technology and expand its team, Ahmedabad-based eBook publisher Matrubharti has raised a seed funding of Rs. 20 lakh from Viridian Capital.
Founded by Nilesh Shah and Mahendra Sharma, Matrubharti is a self-publishing platform and an app that serves eBooks in six regional languages. It offers a publishing platform to new and aspiring writers in regional languages by taking content directly from authors and publishing it as an eBook.
Mahendra Sharma, co-founder, Matrubharti said, “Our growth rate is 20% month on month and we expect a similar growth over the next one year, as we believe that penetration of smartphones would increase the sales of eBooks going forward.”
It has plans to publish eBooks in as many as 21 languages. According to Matrubharti, it publishes over 450 eBooks every month and claims to have 7.5 lakhs of eBooks downloaded so far.
According to a recent survey by Nielsen India, the India’s book market, which is currently the sixth largest in the world at Rs. 26,100 crores, is likely to further reach Rs. 73,900 crore by 2020.
The survey also says that more than 70 per cent of the Indian publishers have digitised their content to produce eBook versions thereby reaching the target customers through a digital medium, Mahendra added.
Incubated at the Espark-Viridian Accelerator Centre at Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), Gandhinagar, Matrubharti has more than 1,800 authors registered and has published 4,350 eBooks so far, according to the publisher.
