Oyster

Oyster, founded in 2012 by Eric Stromberg, Andrew Brown, and Willem Van Lancker, entered the digital publishing market with a subscription-based e-book service. Headquartered in New York City, the company aimed to become a primary mobile reading platform, often described as the "Netflix of books". The venture secured significant financial backing, including a $3 million seed round in October 2012 led by Founders Fund and a subsequent $14 million round led by Highland Capital Partners in January 2014.

The company's core offering was a $9.95 per month subscription service, providing users with unlimited access to a library of over one million e-book titles. This service was available across a range of devices, including iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, and web browsers. To broaden its market appeal, Oyster introduced an e-book retail store in April 2015. This allowed both subscribers and non-subscribers to purchase individual titles, including those from the 'Big Five' publishers who were not all part of the subscription catalog. The platform also featured a literary magazine, The Oyster Review, to aid book discovery and engage with the literary community.

Despite its efforts, the company faced challenges inherent to the e-book subscription business model, including the high cost of publisher payouts for heavy readers and resistance from some major publishers. In September 2015, it was announced that Oyster would be shutting down its service. The closure was part of a deal with Google, which acquired the company's team and technology assets in what was widely described as an 'acqui-hire'. The founders and a significant portion of the staff transitioned to roles at Google Play Books, while Oyster's service was discontinued in early 2016.

Keywords: e-book subscription, digital publishing, mobile reading, publishing platform, book retail, content streaming, library access, acqui-hire, Google Play Books, literary magazine