Taking a page out of the culture of book gifting, Los Angeles-based Livrada today announced a $1 million seed round to build out its platform and to expand into new retailers, according to BetaKit. Currently, Livrada sells gift cards that can be redeemed for specific e-books at Target, where it has been since July 2012.
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The round was led by Ingram Content Group’s investment arm, ICG Ventures, along with angels and private investors.
Currently the gift cards can be received for e-books on Kindle, Nook and Kobo. Now, Livrada will give self-published authors the ability to distribute or sell gift cards for their book in person. Other large companies and corporations are also interested in using the service to give out e-books at their events.
“Starting out with one product, we found that we’re solving other problems in the whole ecosystem of authors, publishers and ebooks, and we’re the only ones that can fulfill directly through multiple platforms,” says co-founder and CEO Leonard Chen. “My background is in the music industry so I have empathy for content owners and content creators and we’re hopeful what we’re building will bring a lot of value to everyone, starting with the authors.”
Visit Livrada’s website, check out their BILA profile, and follow them on Twitter at @livrada.
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