Reread, a new start-up created out of Falmouth University’s Venture Studio, Launchpad, is looking to disrupt the publishing space using AI to determine the next bestseller.
Reread, co-founded by Mohamed Fadel, Oliver Rodwell and Priyen Logeswaran, uses AI to analyse thousands of books to discover the makings of a blockbuster. The technology will help authors improve their work by baselining against bestsellers and providing feedback on how to improve manuscripts.
Mohamed explained where the idea came from: “As an author, I’ve been through the publishing life cycle and experienced the difficulties of eliciting high quality early feedback. With this in mind, we quested why AI hadn’t been incorporated further into the world of publishing, especially in aiding manuscript development.
“Our research showed some key issues, such as traditional publishers being incredibly resistant to technology, the boom of independent authorship (further spurred on by COVID), which leaves authors needing timely feedback and previous research into the application of AI in book editing being proved but not commercialised. To us it sounded like the perfect opportunity to disrupt an industry.”
The trio joined Launchpad in September 2021 and have already incorporated – one of the fastest moving teams on the programme to do so.
Priyen added: “Incorporating wasn’t a major step in our minds, however, it unlocked a number of items that we couldn’t access before such as a business bank account and added a level of legitimacy to our business that we had previously underestimated.”
Undeterred by their early status Reread have already been pushing for traction, including getting to the final 100 of global start-up and tech festival Slush’s pitching competition.
Oliver said: “Applying to Slush was really a sink or swim moment for us, we were only a week old at that point, but it represented a challenge and a chance to test ourselves. We succeeded getting to the final 100 – out of 1500 in a typical year. Unfortunately, that’s as far as we got. However, it certainly wasn’t a loss; our team and idea grew immensely during the application process and the feedback was invaluable – onwards and upwards to the next pitch I say!
“Launchpad has been a great environment to foster innovation and creativity, the staff have been exceptional at working around us to ensure we have what we need when we need to accelerate forward.”
With Mohamed taking the lead on product and technology, Oliver focused on sales and marketing, and Priyen on finance and operations, the team are currently working on the release of their manuscript analysis tool, hiring technical staff, and raising their pre-seed round.
Certainly, one to watch visit their website to keep updated with their progress and to find out more about Reread.