Douban Reading Goes Independent of Douban, Raises Capital to Fill Fiction Market

Douban Reading announced its independence from Douban Group and its receipt of 60 million yuan in A-round financing from Linmon Picture. Huaxing Alpha was the exclusive financial advisor for this round.

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In 2013, Douban Reading launched as an original platform that provided writing services to author and e-book audio to readers. The independence and financing imply that Douban Reading is targeting literature and downstream industries.

Douban Reading is characterized by genre fiction, such as new female stories, career stories, crime fiction, science fiction, urban novels and youth novels.

It currently has more than 40,000 authors and 10 million readers.

Douban Reading’s CEO Dai Qin said he hopes to become China’s most important literary platform in the next two decades. “Over the past two decades, online serial novels defined the era,” he said, “Novels set in an alternate history influenced a generation of writers and readers. But in our opinion, this cannot represent all writing. Young people today have read foreign novels and watched foreign films. Their taste and writing are not confined to the past 20 years’ works. There are many people willing to write something new and read something new.”

Douban Reading said they would use the financing to construct a complete system that serves authors, improves the platform experience, explores new genres of writing and attracts more young readers.

Abei, the founder and CEO of Douban, shared his opinion of Douban Reading’s independence and financing. “The reading product was a deep exploration in the field of literature. This independence enables Douban Reading to be meaningfully involved in its vertical industry. Douban will continue to support this long and meaningful project.”

This article originally appeared in Donews and was translated by Pandaily.