Issuu

History

The digital newsstand with over 30 million publications and 100 million active readers. Issuu software is used by several online publications. The company was founded in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2006 by Michael Hansen, Ruben Bjerg Hansen, Mikkel Jensen, and Martin Ferro-Thomsen. In 2014, issuu released Clip, a tool that allows readers to take a snapshot of any part of a publication and share that on social media or through email. That year the company had around 80 million monthly unique visitors, with 32 million monthly arriving from web or mobile searches. In 2014 Issuu also partnered with LinkedIn, which built-in Issuu magazine integration into basic LinkedIn profiles. In 2015 the number was around 85 million unique visitors per month, with 21 million publications publishing through Issuu (amounting to about 15,000 new publications per day). Page views for the company reached about seven to eight billion per month. Publications are available in thirty different languages. In 2016, unique visitors per month increased to around 100 million per month and the number of publications available on Issuu reached 30 million.

Management

In early 2013, the company opened an office in Palo Alto, California and appointed CEO Joe Hyrkin, formerly of Reverb, Trinity Ventures, and Yahoo!, to helm its Silicon Valley operations. The company soon moved its headquarters to the Palo Alto location. Upon the move, the founders of Issuu stated that they chose Palo Alto as they saw social media and digital distribution partnerships as the key to its growth, rather than focusing mostly on publishing relationships.

Finances and partnerships

In July 2014, Issuu raised $10 million in a Series B round to bring the total capital it has raised since it was founded to $21.5 million. That round of investment was led by KDDI and Sunstone. In 2012 Issuu partnered with Peecho, to embed a cloud printing button into Issuu publication documents. In 2013 Issuu acquired publishing software maker Magma. In 2014 Issuu partnered with LinkedIn, which built in Issuu magazine integration into basic LinkedIn profiles. In January 2016, Micromedia Publications began publishing its seven weekly newspapers through the issuu service.

Apps

In 2014 Issuu released its iOS app to access Issuu on Apple devices. The app includes an offline reading list function that allows users to read from the Issuu app without being online. The app can also stack publications back to back so that they can be read in succession. Initially the app was released on Android in January, and received between one and five million downloads over the front part of 2014. Previous to the launch of the company’s 2014 apps, Apple had rejected an app from Issuu three times during 2009 (before the company expanded into the US).

Recognition

In 2008, the site was a South by Southwest (SXSW) finalist. In 2009, issuu was named one of TIME's 50 Best Websites.