Spines raises USD $64m as revenue run rate hits USD $50m

Spines has raised USD $64 million in growth capital as the AI publishing platform reaches a USD $50 million revenue run rate.

The financing includes a USD $29 million Series A-1 equity round led by Zeev Ventures, with participation from Aleph, NordStar, M-Fund, LionTree and angel investor Dan Senor, as well as a USD $35 million non-dilutive growth financing facility from Twelve.

More than 8,000 American authors have published books through the platform, and about 400 new authors join each month. Revenue has grown 400% year on year.

Spines targets authors who bring their own manuscripts to the platform and use its software tools to manage publication and distribution. Its system covers editing, proofreading, cover design, formatting, metadata, translation, audiobooks, distribution, royalty management and marketing, while also giving authors access to in-house human editors, proofreaders, designers and language specialists.

The platform distributes books through more than 100 global channels and offers a centralised royalty management system designed to show authors what their books are earning across platforms and markets. According to Spines, its process can cut a publishing timetable that often takes 12 to 18 months down to a matter of weeks.

Expansion plans

Alongside the funding announcement, Spines outlined several areas for product expansion, including audience development and marketing tools designed to help authors create and run campaigns aimed at relevant readers.

The company is also expanding translation from English into additional markets. It currently supports Spanish, Italian, French, German, Portuguese, Polish and Hebrew using AI translation with human review by native speakers, and plans to increase that to 20 target languages.

Spines also offers audiobook creation using synthetic voices or a voice model based on a short recording by the author. For children's books, it has developed illustration tools intended to keep characters visually consistent throughout a title.

The round was led by Oren Zeev, Founding Partner at Zeev Ventures, who has previously invested in Audible. Existing investor Aleph also participated after backing the company in its seed round and subsequent funding rounds.

Yehuda Niv, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Spines, said the company is focused on supporting authors rather than replacing them.

"We don't believe the future of publishing is AI writing books. We believe the future is AI giving authors superpowers," he said.

"The writing, the story and the knowledge come from the author. Our job is to build the technology and infrastructure around them; to help more people discover the author within themselves, turn their work into a professionally published book, and ultimately find and reach its audience."

Investor backing

Zeev said his investment thesis was shaped by both the company's growth and direct user experience from someone in his network. "Spines has all the ingredients to become the category leader in the next generation of publishing," he said.

"I've seen it first-hand; a close friend of mine published his book with Spines and had a great experience. I believe Spines can become the go-to platform for authors around the world to publish their books and reach readers."

Michael Eisenberg, Co-Founder and General Partner at Aleph, said the company's appeal lies in using software to simplify the work that follows manuscript completion. "Spines' growth since our seed investment has been extraordinary, and it's clear that authors are hungry for this kind of AI-powered publishing solution. As an author myself, I know that writing the manuscript is only the first step in bringing a book into the world. Everything that comes afterward can be slow, fragmented and frustrating. What attracted me to Spines from the beginning was the opportunity to use technology to remove that friction without removing the author from the process. AI should amplify human creativity, not substitute for it, and Spines is building the infrastructure to make that possible at global scale," he said.

Niv said the company's broader aim is to widen access to publication in an industry long shaped by gatekeepers. "For most of publishing history, gatekeepers decided who was worthy of becoming an author and which stories deserved to reach the world," he said.

"Anyone with a story, an idea or knowledge to share deserves the opportunity to publish it. Our role is to give creators the tools, infrastructure and reach to find the audience for their work. To me, that's the real promise of AI in publishing: not replacing writers, but removing barriers so that anyone with a talent for writing can become an author."