Woodpie.com, a Bengaluru-based start-up for book lovers, is one of seven global start-ups to be selected to participate in Ingram Content Group’s 1440 Accelerator for Publishing Innovation, supported by The Nashville Entrepreneur Centre (EC), Tennessee, US.

Co-founded by Anuradha Bajpai and Manoj Jindal, Woodpie was selected out of 87 applications from 14 countries. The start-up will receive $30,000 in seed funding in exchange for 7 per cent equity in the company and will go through a 14-week business building programme from January 31 to May 9. A social platform for book lovers, Woodpie.com allows readers to discover books, find unbiased book reviews and recommendations, influence other readers around them to choose their next read and also connect with other readers to exchange books to read. Since its launch in December 2014, Woodpie has grown to 10,000 users in 35 countries and 310 cities in India, and 80 per cent of its users are Indians.

“We are committed to bringing the reading community closer and social networking to the real world where people share real books and real laughs rather than LOLs. At a time when the spotlight is on e-books, Woodpie is an attempt to keep the interest in real books alive. We are thrilled to be selected for the 1440 program and with the interest shown by Ingram, it seems like physical books are here to stay,” said Bajpai.

Woodpie is the only Indian start-up to be selected for the 1440 Accelerator programme. While three of the seven start-ups are from Chicago, Memphis and Anaheim in the US, the other three are from Zimbabwe, Brazil and Poland.

The seven selected start-ups will engage onsite at the EC with the curriculum, community, connections and capital necessary to turn innovative ideas into reality. Ingram works closely with publishers, retailers, libraries and schools around the world to provide them with the right products and services to help them succeed in the complex world of content publishing.

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