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Valsoft Buys NetGalley, Firebrand and Supadu From Media Do for $20 Million

Montreal's Valsoft has bought the Firebrand Group, home of NetGalley, Firebrand Technologies and Supadu, from Japan's Media Do. Valsoft already owns Edelweiss.

The Publishing Times Staff · October 6, 2026 · 5 min read

Valsoft Buys NetGalley, Firebrand and Supadu From Media Do for $20 Million

Who owns NetGalley now? As of this week, the same company that owns Edelweiss. On October 6, 2026, Valsoft Corporation, a Montreal-based buyer of vertical market software businesses, announced that it has acquired the Firebrand Group: Firebrand Technologies, NetGalley LLC, and Supadu Ltd. The seller was Media Do International, the U.S. subsidiary of Tokyo-listed MEDIA DO Co., Ltd.

Valsoft's announcement did not give a price. Media Do's own disclosure to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, filed in Japanese on September 30, 2026, did: 20 million U.S. dollars, or about 3,149 million yen at the exchange rate it used. According to that filing, Media Do's board approved the sale, signed the transfer agreements, and completed the transfer all on September 30.

What changed hands

The deal covers three businesses that sit behind a large share of the trade book supply chain:

  • Firebrand Technologies, founded in 1987 and based in Newburyport, Massachusetts, makes title management and metadata software. Its Title Management Enterprise platform, Valsoft said, runs the publishing workflow "from acquisition through publication," keeping schedules, rights, costs, and metadata in one system. Its Eloquence on Demand service sends title data, covers, and digital files to retailers, wholesalers, and distributors.
  • NetGalley, founded in 2008, distributes digital galleys. Valsoft's release says "nearly 1 million book advocates and trade professionals" use it to discover new titles and share reviews, with a presence in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, and Japan.
  • Supadu, founded in 2010 and based in London, builds publisher websites, ecommerce, and discovery tools that help publishers sell directly to readers.

Media Do's filing describes the group as five companies: Quality Solutions, Inc. (the company behind Firebrand Technologies) with its subsidiary QS Information Services, and NetGalley, LLC with its subsidiaries NetGalley UK and Supadu. It lists Angela Bole as chief executive of both Quality Solutions and NetGalley.

The numbers in Media Do's filing

The disclosure includes three years of results for the two lead companies, in thousands of U.S. dollars. For calendar 2025:

  • Quality Solutions (Firebrand): revenue of $10,197,000 and an operating loss of $1,799,000.
  • NetGalley (including its subsidiaries): revenue of $8,540,000 and operating income of $2,111,000.

Media Do said it expects to book an extraordinary gain on the sale in the third quarter of its fiscal year ending February 2027, and that it is still working out the amount.

Why Media Do sold

Media Do bought Quality Solutions and NetGalley in January 2021 and added Supadu in January 2022. In its filing, the company said it now wants to concentrate its overseas business on taking Japanese publishing content abroad through Seven Seas Entertainment, the U.S. manga and light novel publisher it made a consolidated subsidiary in March 2026. It said the Firebrand Group would grow best under an owner that specializes in software (PT's summary of the Japanese text).

Valsoft already owns Edelweiss

This is not Valsoft's first book industry deal. In November 2024 it acquired Above the Treeline, the company behind Edelweiss, the catalog, ordering, and digital review copy platform. At the time, Edelweiss said it was used by all major publishers and hosted 95% of the U.S. frontlist. Media Do's filing cites that ownership as one reason it chose Valsoft, saying it expects "strong synergies between the platforms" (PT's translation).

Valsoft, for its part, says Firebrand, NetGalley, and Supadu "will continue to operate autonomously, with their leadership teams and employees remaining in place." Anthony Caruso, Managing Partner at Valsoft, called the three "trusted names that publishers depend on every day" and said Valsoft would keep investing in technology "that helps a title from the moment it's created to the moment it reaches a reader."

Neither company has announced any change to NetGalley's or Edelweiss's services, pricing, or terms.

Why it matters for authors

The two biggest digital galley platforms now share an owner. NetGalley and Edelweiss are where many publishers send advance copies to reviewers, booksellers, and librarians, and NetGalley is also widely used by indie authors, often through shared co-op listings. Both are now part of Valsoft. Valsoft says the businesses will run on their own, and Media Do talked about synergies. Nothing has been announced yet, so watch for emails about updated terms, pricing, or account changes, and read them before your next listing renews.

Your metadata may run through Firebrand. If your publisher uses Firebrand's Title Management Enterprise or Eloquence on Demand, your title data, cover, and files reach retailers through those systems. Ask your publisher if you are not sure. Nothing about that has been announced as changing, and Valsoft says the teams stay in place.

Don't let one platform hold your launch. NetGalley's value is its audience of nearly a million readers and trade professionals and the reviews they post. If you rely on NetGalley reviews for launch momentum, keep your own records of the feedback you receive and build your own reader list, so your launch plan does not depend on any one platform's owner.

Sources