This week San Francisco-based self-publishing app Tactilize announced that it has secured $1 million in a funding round that included investors from Switzerland, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and France. The self-publishing service lets users create, share and sell content through its free iPad app. On Tactilize publishers create interactive “cards” that allow those viewing content to swipe between photos and cards, read full one-screen articles, and play videos all from the same page. While Tactilize has decided not to disclose the names of its investors, it did reveal that it is expecting to close several hundred thousand dollars in additional funding in the coming weeks.
Tactilize seeks to create a global content community that will allow users to publish, share and discover new content. “Our team created Tactilize because we were fed up with simply being spectators on the iPad and fed up with reading mostly web pages that were poorly adapted to the screen, and fed up with not having a solution to simply monetize the beautiful content we all deliver,” said founder and CEO Nicolas Voisin. Since launching its beta version last month, the app has attracted around 3,000 users, who use the platform to upload a range of content including both text and media, with the option of sharing photos and videos. “I don’t think that books will be just text and photos anymore,” said Voisin, who views the app as an interactive tool that will allow self-publishers to share more of their content through videos, images and links. Read full article