Iwan Books lands angel round to build AI self-publishing platform for Gen Z
What's the deal? Egyptian self-publishing startup Iwan BooksDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has closed its first investment round, an angel round backed by Ahmed SamiDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, founder and chief executive officer of Eye Advertising Group. The capital will fund an AI-driven self-publishing platform aimed at Gen Z creators.
Founded by author and entrepreneur Mohamed Gamal, Iwan Books wants to help authors draft, design, and distribute work in what it calls a "post-print" era. Gamal has 19 published works and previously founded Arabic publishing platform KotobnaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
The hire: The round makes Sami the company's first external investor and its co-founder and chief technology officer. He founded Eye Advertising in 2012 and has backed AI startups including Zaher AIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and BlinkBotDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →; he will lead the platform's AI integration and technical scaling.
What's the endgame? The money is being deployed to build the platform across web and native iOS and Android apps. Beta versions are already live, and the company is running an early-adopter campaign to sign up digital content creators.
The product: The platform bundles AI tools for automated cover design, proofreading, and editing. It also converts text into audiobooks and generates short-form promotional videos directly from a manuscript.
Why now? Iwan Books targets a different audience than Kotobna, which serves millennials aged 30 to 45 who buy print books. The new platform aims at Gen Z and younger millennials, aged 15 to 30, who consume short-form digital content, audio, and social reels.
The product supports both Arabic and English content, which the company says opens a global market of roughly half a billion potential authors and readers.
The signal: Iwan Books is betting that publishing's next growth comes from turning written work into multi-format media for fast-paced digital consumption, not from selling e-books alone. Its pitch reflects a wider push to embed generative AI across the creative production chain.
Read more: technotime.net
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