Kobo Gets $16 Million for E-book Service; Teams with Borders

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 15, 2009 - 3:01pm.

Toronto - Canadian bookseller Indigo Books & Music announced on Tuesday that it has spun-off its Shortcovers digital reading initiative into a new venture, Kobo, which in turn said it has raised $16 million in funding.

Indigo provided $5 million of the sum, and will retain a 58% stake in Kobo; other investors included Borders Group (NYSE: BGP), Hong Kong-based Instant Fame and Australia's REDGroup.

Since launching in February, Indigo's e-book store has distributed titles in over 200 countries, to over 1 million users who have downloaded its e-book reader application.

Kobo launches with a catalog of over 2 million e-books for sale, and another 1.8 million titles available for free download.

U.S.-based retailer Borders has already launched a Kobo-powered e-book store on its Borders.com site, and will partner with Kobo to develop a new standalone e-book reader device.

http://snipurl.com/tpk3e (N.Y. Times)

http://www.kobobooks.com