Herbst Kinsky has advised Austria's Storylution on the entry of Thalia Buecher into the company through the acquisition of a minority stake as part of a capital increase. Heuking Kuhn Luer Wojtek advised Thalia.
Financial details were not disclosed.
According to Herbst Kinsky, "Storylution operates a digital publishing platform (Story.One) that puts authors in the spotlight and offers the possibility to turn their stories into books in an uncomplicated and intuitive way. Story.One now has over 100,000 stories by more than 10,000 authors from the entire German-speaking region and beyond."
Thalia describes itself as "the leading omnichannel bookseller in German-speaking countries" and has 347 bookstores in Germany alone, while also being present in Austria and Switzerland.
"With the investment in the Vienna-based company, Thalia is expanding its collaboration with Storylution, which has been in place for around three years, and wants to discover and promote writing talent even more than before and offer them a platform in the book trade," Thalia announced.
"The idea and the innovative concept of Story.One and its founder Hannes Steiner inspired us right from the start," Thalia Buecher CEO Ingo Kretzschmar commented. "After we had already worked together successfully in Austria, and since this year also in Germany as part of the Young Storyteller Awards, we are now consistently expanding the partnership with the financial participation in Storylution. Story.One clearly shows that we are on the verge of a new age of book creation – the democratization of the book will be further driven by digital platforms, similar to what is already happening in the music industry, for example."
The Herbst Kinsky team was led by Partner Philipp Kinsky and included Associates Barbara Ring and Leopold Gottsauner-Wolf.