More Startups
This investment carries considerable risks and may lead to a loss of the entire assets invested. Projected returns cannot be guaranteed and may be lower than expected.

readfy | Overview



readfy is the first company worldwide that offers free access to ten thousands of e-books, including international bestsellers. The readfy service is financed by means of advertising in the e-books. In addition, readfy offers ad-free and inexpensive premium subscriptions. readfy – the free e-book service.

New digital media and devices have already changed many industries and their business models dramatically. The MP3 format and the associated iPod turned the world of music upside down. When the iPad became available in 2010, the same fundamental changes began in the book industry.

The large number of e-readers sold and the wide distribution of tablet computers and smartphones have already caused the electronic book market to develop into an important and promising business area.

In Germany alone, approximately 8 million tablets and more than 800,000 e-book readers were sold in 2013. In the U.S., 20 % of the books read by private customers are e-books. The market share of e-books in Germany has increased to more than 10 % in 2013 within a five-year period. According to the trade association Bitkom, 21 % of the population in Germany already read digitally – a trend visible in all age groups.

E-books have become accepted by the general public, which offers a great opportunity for new business models similar to those already established in the music industry for instance. Most customers wonder why e-books are hardly any cheaper than printed books although the costs for production and distribution are significantly lower. A free model successfully offered by music streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer, and others does not yet exist for e-books. In the music market, many paying customers have already been attracted by means of free introductory offers: Many customers first use the free offer and then sign up for ad-free, inexpensive premium subscriptions. We want to use this concept for e-books as well. By means of its service, readfy takes the next logical step in the evolution of digital book offers.

 

 

As soon as the mobile app of the readfy platform has been downloaded and installed on the smartphone or tablet, the free reading experience begins.

Users may select e-books from bestseller lists, discover new books while browsing recommendations, or search for specific genres or authors. There are no limitations with regard to the number of books and the reading period. No matter whether you just want to browse through a book or read your favorite book several times in a row – everything is possible. Thus, you can make a voyage of discovery to your heart's content without having to worry about the costs or possible risks.

Moreover, users can create bookmarks, edit comments, and use attractive community features, e.g., discuss and recommend books.

 

On readfy, Finding New Books Is Easy and Fast


As early as at the time of the product launch on 7 February 2014 (initially in the form of a limited "public beta launch"), readfy offers a sophisticated reader app for Android smartphones and tablets containing a catalog of more than 15,000 books of very different genres by more than 120 publishing houses that can be read for free for the first time on readfy. The public market test of the readfy service was scheduled deliberately in order to learn more about the customer needs and to further refine the business model. The launch of the completely finished readfy platform is planned for the summer of 2014.

Until the end of the year, we will upgrade the entire technological platform so that readfy may then be used on Apple devices in addition to Android systems as well. We will also have increased our offer to approximately 30,000 books by then.

Additional potential exists if the readfy service is made available on e-readers. Currently, however, e-readers only represent the smaller proportion of the reading devices in Germany (18%) and other countries. Therefore, we initially focus on the much more widely used Android and Apple devices, such as tablets and smartphones.

In the course of the planned internationalization, English and Spanish books will follow in 2015, as will the expansion of readfy into other European countries and the U.S. The technical platform necessary for this expansion will be upgraded step by step and operated from a central location in Germany by readfy.

The internationalization is supported by readfy co-partner Gerrit Schumann, who founded Simfy (www.simfy.de) and is now one of the top executives of Deezer (www.deezer.com). Both Simfy and Deezer are among the most successful music streaming services in the world. Consequently, Gerrit Schumann has gained valuable experience establishing the freemium business model in the music industry. Together with the readfy team, he has developed the specific business model of our service, and he has been continuously supporting us in founding and developing the company.

The technical product development is supported by readfy co-partner 1stMOVER (www.1stmover.org), an incubator from Düsseldorf specializing in mobile start-ups. The readfy team is located in the same city and is in contact with other mobile start-ups of 1stMOVER on a daily basis. Last but not least, e-book market experts are also part of the readfy partner team, which is why we, the managing founders, have strong support from three sides in the areas of marketing, development, and book market.

We aim to become one of the international market leaders in free reading and to establish our company as the technological leader in advertising in e-books.

Advertising on websites and in search engines (particularly Google) is already a multi-billion euro market. With its business concept, readfy opens up the advertising market for e-books, which did not exist previously. For the first time, it is possible to integrate targeted, personalized advertisements in the form of banner ads, full-page ads, or videos into e-books. The technology used for this purpose has already been developed since the summer of 2013.

 

Attractive Advertising Formats with Familiar and New, Innovative Formats


By means of the readfy advertising platform, it will be possible to place subtle advertisements in the books that are targeted precisely at the interests of the users. Of course, publishing houses and advertising customers are only able to access anonymized customer data for readership and advertising analyses or for advertising campaigns. The customer data are stored on high-security servers in Germany.

Apart from their share in the advertising revenues, publishing houses on readfy also benefit from a better understanding of their readers and of the interests and reading habits of these readers. New, exciting book projects may thus be oriented toward the preferences of the readers, which improves book sales of the publishing houses and their authors. The possibility of enjoying high-quality books for free also helps publishers win new readers who have not used e-books before.

On readfy, we will establish a new and free reading experience as well as a successful business model for publishing houses, authors, and advertising customers. This will create a true win-win situation both for readers and for publishing houses, which is why readfy already offers books by 120 publishers at the time of its launch.

Companisto
To see the full profile of readfy , please register or log in.
Register now
Already registered?   

Please note

The acquisition of the offered securities and investments is associated with considerable risks and can lead to the complete loss of the invested assets. The expected yield is not guaranteed and may be lower. Whether it is a security or an asset investment can be seen in the description of the investment opportunity.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about investing on Companisto, please contact our service team:


Toll-free phone number for investors calling from Germany:
0800 - 100 267 0

Companisto investors hotline:
+49(0)30 - 346 491 493

We are available Monday through Friday between 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.