Wattpad

Wattpad sells for $600M with only $25M in revenue

Romance-and-fan-fiction platform Wattpad, with 160 million users but only $25 million in revenue, was acquired by South Korea's Naver for $600 million. It had raised $117 million and only monetized through advertising.

“They raised $117 million. And the whole idea was that there's this group of women who love romance novels, and there's a lot of amateur writers out there, and they created a place where they can meet and share stories for free. And they did not make a lot of money. I think at the time of sale, only $25 million in revenue. They were only making money through advertising, I believe, which I think for them was really dumb.”