- This is Goodnotes’ first investment in a start-up and marks the two companies’ joint effort to create a global digital paper ecosystem
- As a result of Goodnotes’ strategic investment, WeBudding secured a follow-up investment from Strong Ventures, a California-based venture capitalist firm.
LONDON, Sept. 25, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Today, Goodnotes, the beloved AI-powered digital paper company and 2022 iPad App of the Year, invested USD1.9 million (KRW2.5 billion) into WeBudding, South Korea’s largest digital stationery platform.
Goodnotes, which participated as a Strategic Investor, is the world’s top note-taking app with more than 21 million monthly active users worldwide. Last year, Goodnotes users created a total of 1.9 billion digital notebooks. This investment swiftly follows last month’s launch of Goodnotes 6, which transformed the company into the world’s first AI-powered digital paper company with the industry first generative AI for handwritten text.
With WeBudding as Goodnotes’ first investment, the goal of this strategic alliance is to fuel the growth of a global ecosystem that supports a universally accessible digital paper. Regardless of the purpose and needs – whether planning a road trip, studying for an exam, building an editorial calendar, journaling, or anything in between – every Goodnotes user has access to a vast selection of useful and delightful paper templates, planners, stickers, and notebook covers from WeBudding.
“WeBudding is spearheading the newly emerging digital stationery market and has proven that it can attract thousands of talented content creators from around the world,” said Steven Chan, Founder and CEO of Goodnotes. “We see great synergy with WeBudding and trust that our investment and knowledge of the global tablet market will help WeBudding expand their footprint abroad.”
Currently, there are about 2,500 creators who are active on WeBudding, and they offer over 16,000 unique products. Due to the increasing popularity of Goodnotes and everyday tablet use, WeBudding has recorded a year-on-year sales growth of 220% from January to August, 2023.
“After confirming WeBudding’s overseas market growth potential through our collaboration with Goodnotes in the first half of this year, I am pleased that with this investment, we can establish a foundation for international expansion,” said Donghwan Shin, Co-founder and CEO of WeBudding and 2023 Forbes 30 under 30 winner. “We will continue our efforts to strengthen our partnership with Goodnotes, aiming to establish ourselves as an essential global digital stationery app for tablet users worldwide.”
About Goodnotes
Goodnotes is the leading AI digital paper used by millions of users worldwide. Launched in 2011, Goodnotes started as an improvement to physical paper notes—introducing the ability to take handwritten digital notes, search handwritten text, and organize everything into a digital library. Today, Goodnotes is pioneering generative AI for digital handwriting in the productivity space. Goodnotes was most recently named Apple’s 2022 iPad App of the Year.
About WeBudding
Founded in November 2018, by Donghwan Shin, Donggyun Ko, and Chaeyoung Lee, WeBudding quickly gained popularity by creating innovative paper notebooks tailored for various majors. However, recognizing the shift towards digital notes and the rise of tablet usage among students, WeBudding launched a marketplace for digital note templates. With the accelerated transition to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, WeBudding became the leading digital stationery service in Asia, boasting over 16,000 content pieces.
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SOURCE Goodnotes Limited
