Crowdfunding publisher Unbound is launching a new funding campaign to continue its US expansion and support its UK operations.

The publisher, which says it already receives 20% of its crowdfunding pledges from the US, is joining forces with equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube to raise £1million.

The money raised from the Crowdcube campaign will allow Unbound to fund its first US hires and build a dedicated commissioning team in the region. The publisher is considering where to base the team and has not ruled out the West Coast of the US.

From September, Unbound will also start to sell 22 select titles from both front and backlist into US bookstores through a new distribution agreement with Consortium.

Unbound, which has published The Good Immigrant by Nikesh Shula and Man Booker longlisted The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth, added the funding will also expand the capability of its predictive machine learning app to enable authors to have more insight into how well their Unbound crowdfunding campaign is likely to perform before it launches. Dr Noelia Jiménez Martínez, head of data science and astrophysics at Unbound, has been developing the app for 12 months, and it is now routinely being used by the commissioning team in-house. The algorithm tested to 80% accuracy.

C.e.o. and co-founder Dan Kieran (pictured) said: “As the world’s first crowdfunding publisher, Unbound has always been at the forefront of democratising publishing, so it makes perfect sense for us to be more democratically owned ourselves. We wanted to offer our authors, creators and backers the chance to share in the company’s future success. Launching a fundraise with Crowdcube feels like the perfect fit for us.”

Unbound’s Crowdcube campaign will launch privately on Thursday 2nd May, giving authors and backers first chance to support. It will be open to the public on Tuesday 7th May. Potential investors can register their interest here.