Warburg Pincus Invests $21 Million in iUniverse.com

Posted on January 11, 2001

iUniverse.com, a provider of custom digital publishing and epublishing services, announced it has secured $21 million in venture capital financing from Warburg Pincus and that Warburg Pincus has reserved additional capital for future investment in the company. iUniverse will use the funding to expand and market its digital publishing technology. Recently, iUniverse.com has focused more on business-to-business digital publishing services. However, it is still offering epublishing services for new and previously published authors, which was the original focus of the company.

``Warburg Pincus' investment is a tremendous validation of our technology and vision for digital content publishing, distribution and management,'' said iUniverse CEO, Richard Tam. ``In the coming year, we intend to solidify our position as the technology of choice and continue to transform the publishing industry.''

``Our decision to invest in iUniverse is based largely on the long-term value we see in the company's business model and technology,'' said Stewart Gross, Senior Managing Director of Warburg Pincus. ``Customized content creation and POD delivery are the next major milestones in the evolution of publishing technology, allowing content publishers to reach new customer markets with specific information requirements. As a provider of digital publishing infrastructure services, iUniverse is uniquely positioned to exploit these emerging trends.''

iUniverse.com provides digital publishing services for authors, publishers and businesses. The company has partnerships with Publishers Group West, Hungry Minds (formerly IDG Books), Barnes & Noble, MediaBay, Adobe, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and B&N.com. iUniverse.com has operations in Silicon Valley, California; Lincoln, Nebraska; New York, New York; Seattle, Washington; and Shanghai, China. The company employs more than 300 people worldwide.