Self Publication App for iPad Tactilize Raises $1 Million

Tactilize, a self-publishing app for the iPad just raised $1 million from an undsiclosed source and is working on an additional $280,000 round from Switzerland and the Middle East. CEO Nicolas Voisin has spent seven years of his career in the advertising agency world, working for various agencies before starting his own content website called OWNI [FR], which is a solid success in France and a cross between Techcrunch and the Nouvel Observateur. He’s also started digital R&D lab 22mars. Co-founder Valentin Squirelo has worked with Nicolas for the last two years at OWNI and 22mars, and has moved to San Francisco a month ago to launch Tactilize internationally.
Tactilize allows users to produce multimedia content, that can include photos, web pages, videos, or anything else, that they can share with others, and optionally sell. They also emphasize their content discovery tool. Although they are not the first, with competitors like Habitat and Yudu, Tactilize plans on differentiating itself by acting as a new channel for content publication, almost acting as a social network. The basic version, which is already in the App Store, allows you to consume content. The new funding will be used to enable in-app publication, as well as scaling up the platform.
In a crowded space, Tactilize is trying to set itself apart by being the strongest self-publication tool that can promote content by social mechanisms. Being iPad only, however, they miss out on an increasingly large segment of the tablet market, where Apple’s beleaguered marketshare is being attacked by fresh and cheaper Android tablets, as well as the newer Windows 8 tablets.