McNab’s digital book service secures second round investment

Andy McNab’s digital book company, Mobcast Services Ltd, has secured second round investment, attracting the support of Japanese mobile book giant For-Side.com Co. Ltd.

Mobcast is the firm behind the GoSpoken.com service which offers digital books through mobile handsets including Vodafone’s 360 platform.

Founded by McNab and CEO Tony Lynch, the service has signed a number of foreign language deals and recently co-operated with Blackberry in researching how technology can be used to develop literacy levels in schools.

According to statement issued by the two firms For-Side.com, which already sells 2 million eBooks per month to mobile devices, has invested “£1m in various instruments, equating to approximately a 15% stake”, the investment values the business at around £6.67 million.

For-Side.com says it expects the digital book market to grow rapidly outside of Japan and Mobcast will use the investment to drive take-up of the concept.

Lynch said: “The popularity of the eReader has taken everyone by surprise. We predict that in 5 years time every book lover will be reading a book on their phone. It’s just too convenient.”

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