Digital Media Juggernaut OverDrive Nabs Funding From Insight Venture Partners

OverDrive, which provides infrastructure and services for the distribution of digital content such as ebooks, audiobooks, music and videos, has raised capital from PE firm Insight Venture Partners, the New York-based backer of the likes of Twitter, Chegg, Privalia, Newegg and HauteLook.

The size of the financing round remains undisclosed, but OverDrive says it concerns a “major investment” and the provision of additional resources and capital by the investment firm is subject to regulatory approval.

OverDrive was founded by President and CEO Steve Potash back in 1986, and has established partnerships with leading publishers including Random House, HarperCollins, Penguin, Hachette, McGraw-Hill and hundreds of others over the years.

Today, OverDrive says it operates a digital content repository and fulfillment platform for ebooks, audiobooks, music and video content for a global network of more than 11,000 retailers, libraries, schools, and other digital channels.

Its catalogs are said to encompass more than 500,000 premium copyrighted titles, including one of the world’s largest catalogs of ebooks in the open-standard EPUB format.

OverDrive says it will soon be releasing ebook appls for Android and iOS devices, all of which will display EPUB ebooks in their native format and include multimedia support.

Peter Sobiloff and Larry Handen, both managing director at Insight Venture Partners, will join OverDrive’s board of directors.