Mofibo was founded in 2013 by Morten Strunge, who previously in 2011 sold his company Onfone to Danish mobile operator TDC, and also just was in the news for investing in Rubberduck. In Denmark Mofibo the leading book streaming service with over 40 000 paying subscribers. Mofibo also has partnerships with mobile operators TDC, 3 and Plenti, and the service is also available in Sweden and Holland. With the acquisition Morten Strunge will become part of Storytels management team and responsible for Storytels operations in Denmark and Holland.

“I am proud of what Mofibo has achieved in a short time – it’s great to see an idea you have had becoming a business with 30 dedicated employees, playing an important role in shaping the future of the book market, and being read or listened to more than 100 000 books every month.” says Morten Strunge, CEO and founder of Mofibo.

Storytel, also founded in this region in 2005 in Lund, back then known as Bokilur, is since 2015 listed on Aktietorget, and has had an impressive growth.

“The last few years have Storytel taken the lead on the Swedish market for book streaming in a similar way like Spotify has done in music and Netflix has done in the TV series. Through the acquisition of Mofibo Storytels will now also take the leader’s jersey in Denmark, which gives us even better possibilities to accelerate Storytels international expansion.” says Storytel CEO Jonas Tellander

In Sweden and Denmark Storytels and Mofibos customers will be able to continue use each service until further notice. In Holland however Mofibos service will be closed down and customers are offered a subscription to Storytel instead.

The acquisition is financed mainly by bank loans and to some extent Storytels own cash. It is also financed by issuing new shares to Morten Strunge equivalent to 20 million SEK. The course is set to 22.75 SEK, based on the average price during the negotiation period. Among Mofibos shareholders are in addition to the main owner Morten Strunge also Seed Capital, Sunstone and 15 other investors.

In an outlook for the combined revenue from both Storytel and Mofibo, the service is nearing a quarterly revenue of 100 million SEK (over € 10 million).

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Audio-books may not be a novel idea, but Storytel’s new feature which allows you, the reader, to seamlessly switch between reading and listening, and remembers exactly where you left off, is entirely unique.

“Willingness to switch between reading and listening have been around a long time, but the technology has not been in place. We have managed to resolve this in an automatic way, which opens up new possibilities in the publishing industry, to the benefit of consumers who receive more reading hours in everyday life,” says CEO Jonas Tellander

Reading between the lines, its clear Tellander is pleased with his firm’s innovation:

“Many of our customers have been with us since the founding of Storytel almost 10 years ago; at which point, we were the first to move into mobile reading. Now that we are the world’s leading audio-book provider, we aim to take the next step and make reading even easier by offering e-books, “

The firm, which currently has over 100,000 subscribers in the Swedish market, hopes that this solution will both encourage reading and enhance the appeal of the digital book.  A recent study shows that we read a whopping 75% more when we are able to listen to our books.  Audio-books allow the joy of reading to be combined with a multitude of different activities: 53% of listeners liven up the chore of cleaning by listening to a novel, while 49% listen as they cook. Several use the audiobook to pass time while traveling with 47% of Storytels users listening during long commutes. 45% follow the plot as they walk, 26% engage in strenuous exercise as they listen and the more mellow 17% listen while they knit.

Plot Summary

Founded in 2005, known then as Bokilur, in Lund by current CEO Jonas Tellander and lead developer Jon Hauksson, Storytel is a digital subscription service that streams audio books to your mobile phone, think the Spotify of reading. By downloading the app to your phone (iPhone or Android) and paying a subscription of 18 €/month, you are granted access to all the books you can read, streamed to you in MP3 format.

Storytel has agreements with almost every publisher in Sweden and is thus able to offer the majority of the published titles you would find in a bookstore. At present, there are thousands of titles on Storytel, in both English and Swedish, with more being added to the (virtual) shelves each month.

Update: in the original story we wrongly wrote 169 € / month as cost. However it is 169 SEK / month, converted to 18 € / month. We apologies for the error. /Ed

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