IPV joins $1 million funding round for Pencil publishing platform

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], Feb 15 : Pencil, a publishing platform turning books into living content using analytics and dynamic editing, on Monday announced raising one million dollars (about Rs 7.3 crore) in the pre-series-A round.
The current round has been led by the US-based venture capital firm SOSV. Inflection Point Ventures (IPV) and Artesian have come on board as new investors and also participated in the round along with existing investors from Mumbai Angels and SucSEED.
IPV is a 3,000-plus strong members angel investing firm that supports new-age entrepreneurs, providing them monetary and experiential capital by connecting them with a diverse group of investors.
Pencil said it heralds the next wave of dynamic content consumption and the creator economy. Just as YouTube and Instagram have transformed video and photo content, Pencil is catering to the needs of millions of writers, readers and storytellers worldwide and will utilise the funds raised from the pre-series A round for building the tech and team at Pencil.
IPV Co-Founder Ankur Mittal said while digital transformation is sweeping through every sector from real estate to manufacturing to transportation, it has somehow eluded the publishing space.
"Pencil is democratising the publishing industry and promoting passion economy where it will make it easier and convenient for people to publish content and for that content to find not only a reader base but also OTT platforms who may be interested in converting those stories into movies and web series," he said.
In addition to the writing platform, Pencil is also building a reader app with the aim to help people read more and read better. Ahead of competitors, the app will feature content in multiple languages along with key insights from 1,000-plus international non-fiction books and built-in recognition for readers to read and contribute.