Spines, the Israeli-founded, Miami-based AI-driven self-publishing platform, has raised $64 million in new financing and says it has reached a $50 million annual revenue run rate, a figure calculated by multiplying its monthly revenue by 12, founder and CEO Yehuda Niv said. More than 8,000 authors have published roughly 12,000 titles through the platform.
Spines’ funding and growth metrics
The new capital follows $22.5 million raised in 2024 — a $6.5 million seed round and a $16 million Series A — bringing Spines’ total funding to nearly $90 million. The recent financing comprises $29 million in equity, which the company calls a Series A-1 led by Zeev Ventures and joined by Aleph, NordStar, M-Fund, LionTree and angel investor Dan Senor, and a $35 million credit facility from lender Twelve that Spines can draw on and must repay but which carries no ownership stake. The company did not disclose its valuation. Niv said he chose the A-1 label over a Series B because “I don’t want the next one to be C round.”
Spines reports rapid revenue growth: the run rate stood at about $5 million at the end of 2024, meaning revenue has grown roughly tenfold in less than two years. Staff has expanded to about 350 employees, up from roughly 50 at the time of its 2024 seed round. Spines adds about 400 authors a month, 95% of them in the U.S., and Niv is targeting 2,000 new authors per month by the end of 2027.
AI stance, services and pricing
Niv said the company has shifted its public message from producing books to empowering authors. He acknowledged a prior communications misstep: “Previously we made a mistake,” he said, referring to earlier comments about title counts. In 2025 he had said he expected Spines to publish 8,000 titles by the end of that year, a figure many interpreted as a sign the company would use AI to churn out books.
“We are not publishing AI-written books at all,” Niv said. Spines scans each uploaded manuscript and, if it appears entirely AI-written, offers the author human editing instead of publishing it as submitted. “It’s almost impossible to distribute an AI-written title,” he added, saying retailers often block such books. In 2025 Niv had described work on a copilot to help authors finish manuscripts; he did not mention the copilot in the latest interview.
The company now describes itself as an “agentic” platform: AI agents handle editing, design, translation, audiobooks, marketing and distribution to more than 100 channels, with in-house editors, designers and native-speaking reviewers available. “We are not an LLM company,” Niv said. “For us, it’s a commodity, but we know how to use it in a specific way.”
Spines has raised its package prices: services that ranged from a few thousand dollars to more than $15,000 in 2025 now run from about $5,000 to $20,000. Authors receive 80% of net royalties, up from 70%. Most customers are first-time authors who are “not ROI-oriented,” Niv said, and the company tells them so on the first call. “We believe success is getting the book published,” he said, “because most of the people will never publish.”
The company is expanding its capabilities: it plans to grow translation support from seven languages to 20 within six months, offers audiobooks narrated in a clone of an author’s own voice (including in other languages), and provides children’s book authors with illustration tools designed to keep characters consistent.
Strategy and ambitions
Acquisitions form part of Spines’ growth strategy, Niv said, and he is eyeing expansion into Australia, Canada and the U.K., most likely by buying local publishers that already have teams in place; he declined to name any specific deals. Niv traces his ambitions back to a 2019 seminar with business coach Dan Peña, who challenged him to empower a billion people. Working from the premise that an author might reach about 1,000 readers, Niv said he would need to publish a million authors to reach that scale. His earlier company, Niv Publishing, was publishing about 1,200 authors a year and now publishes roughly 15% of books in Israel; Niv said that pace was too slow, so he aimed to scale in the U.S. with AI and venture capital backing.
The company did not provide a valuation and declined to name potential acquisition targets.
