Scribd /skrbd/ is a digital library and e-book, audiobook, and comic book

subscription service that includes one million titles.[2][3][4][5] In addition, Scribd

hosts 60 million documents on its open publishing platform.[6]

Founded in 2007 by Trip Adler, Jared Friedman, and Tikhon Bernstam, and
headquartered in San Francisco, California, the company is backed by Khosla
Ventures, Y Combinator, Charles River Ventures, and Redpoint Ventures.[7] Scribd's
e-book subscription service is available on Android and iOS smartphones and
tablets, as well as the Kindle Fire, Nook, and personal computers. Subscribers can
access unlimited books from 1,000 publishers, including Bloomsbury, Harlequin,
HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Lonely Planet, Macmillan, Perseus Book
Group, Simon & Schuster, Wiley, and Workman.[8][9]

Scribd has 80 million users, and has been referred to as "the Netflix for books."[10]
[11][12]

Founding (20072013)[edit]
Scribd began as a site to host and share documents.[11] While at Harvard, Trip
Adler was inspired to start Scribd after learning about the lengthy process required
to publish academic papers.[13] His father, a doctor at Stanford, was told it would
take 18 months to have his medical research published.[13] Adler wanted to create
a simple way to publish and share written content online.[14] He co-founded Scribd
with Jared Friedman and attended the inaugural class of Y Combinator in the
summer of 2006.[15] There, Scribd received its initial $12,000 in seed funding and
then launched in a San Francisco apartment in March 2007.[6]

Scribd was called "the Youtube for documents," allowing anyone to self-publish on
the site using its document reader.[13] The document reader turns PDFs, Word
documents, and PowerPoints into Web documents that can be shared on any
website that allows embeds.[16] In its first year, Scribd grew 218 percent with 23.5
million visitors as of November 2008.[17] It also ranked as one of the top 20 social
media sites according to Comscore.[18]

In June 2009, Scribd launched the Scribd Store, enabling writers to easily upload
and sell digital copies of their work online.[19] That same month, the site partnered
with Simon & Schuster to sell e-books on Scribd.[20] The deal made digital editions
of 5,000 titles available for purchase on Scribd, including books from bestselling
authors like Stephen King, Dan Brown, and Mary Higgins Clark.[21]

In October 2009, Scribd launched its branded reader for media companies including
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The Huffington Post,
TechCrunch, and MediaBistro.[22] ProQuest began publishing dissertations and
theses on Scribd in December 2009.[23] In August 2010, many notable documents
hosted on Scribd began to go viral, including the California Proposition 8 ruling,
which received 6,000 views per second, and HPs lawsuit against Mark Hurds move
to Oracle.[24] [25]

Service

In October 2013, Scribd officially launched its unlimited subscription service for ebooks.[26] This gave users unlimited access to Scribds library of digital books for a
flat monthly fee.[27] The company also announced a partnership with HarperCollins
which made the entire backlist of HarperCollins catalog available on the
subscription service.[28] According to Chantal Restivo-Alessi, chief digital officer at
HarperCollins, this marked the first time that the publisher has released such a large
portion of its catalog.[29] In March 2014, Scribd announced a deal with Lonely
Planet, offering the travel publishers entire library on its subscription service.[30]

In May 2014, Scribd further increased its subscription offering with 10,000 titles
from Simon & Schuster.[31] These titles included works from authors such as: Ray
Bradbury, Mary Higgins Clark, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ernest Hemingway, Walter
Isaacson, Stephen King, Chuck Klosterman, and David McCullough.[32]

Scribd added audiobooks to its subscription service in November 2014 and comic
books in February 2015.[33][34]

In February 2016, it was announced that only titles from a rotating selection of the
library would be available for unlimited reading, and subscriber would have credits
to read three books and one audiobook per month from the entire library; unused
credits roll over to the next month.[35]

Audiobooks[edit]
In November 2014, Scribd added audiobooks to its subscription library.[36] Wired
noted that this was the first subscription service to offer unlimited access to
audiobooks, and "it represents a much larger shift in the way digital content is
consumed over the net." [37] In April 2015, the company expanded its audiobook
catalog in a deal with Penguin Random House.[38] This added 9,000 audiobooks to

its platform including titles from authors like Lena Dunham, John Grisham, Gillian
Flynn, and George R.R. Martin.[39]

Comics[edit]
In February 2015, Scribd introduced comics to its subscription service.[40] The
company added 10,000 comics and graphic novels from publishers including Marvel,
Archie, Boom! Studios, Dynamite, IDW, and Valiant.[34] Through the service,
subscribers now had access to series such as Guardians of the Galaxy, Daredevil, XO Manowar, and The Avengers.[41][42] However, in December 2016, comics were
pulled from the service due to low demand.

Timeline[edit]
In February 2010, Scribd unveiled its first mobile plans for e-readers and
smartphones.[43] In April 2010 Scribd launched a new feature called "Readcast",
[44] which allows automatic sharing of documents on Facebook and Twitter.[45] Also
in April 2010, Scribd announced its integration of Facebook social plug-ins at the
Facebook f8 Developer Conference.[46]

Scribd rolled out a redesign on September 13, 2010 to become, according to

TechCrunch, "the social network for reading".[47]

In October 2013, Scribd launched its e-book subscription service, allowing readers
to pay a flat monthly fee in exchange for unlimited access to all of Scribd's book
titles.[48]

Financials[edit]
The company was initially funded with US$12,000 from Y Combinator in 2006, and
received over US$3.7 million in June 2007 from Redpoint Ventures and The Kinsey
Hills Group.[49][50] In December 2008, the company raised US$9 million in a
second round of funding led by Charles River Ventures with re-investment from
Redpoint Ventures and Kinsey Hills Group.[51] David O. Sacks, former PayPal COO
and founder of Yammer and Geni, joined Scribds board of directors in January 2010.
[52]

In January 2011, Scribd raised an additional US$13 million in a round led by MLC
Investments of Australia and SVB Capital.[53] In January 2015, the company raised
US$22 million in new funding from Khosla Ventures with partner Keith Rabois joining
the Scribd board of directors.[54]