Andy McNab-founded Mobcast has been purchased by Tesco and will now be used to strengthen its blinkbox entertainment service.

Mobcast was brought to market by action novelist Andy McNab and Tony Lynch in 2007 and provides a digital book retail platform with a catalogue of 130,000 titles via a cloud-based platform.

The deal, worth £4.5 million, sees Mobcast join blinkbox (which was acquired in April 2011) and personalised internet radio service WE7 in Tesco’s entertainment portfolio.

McNab says that the decision to be acquired by Tesco stems from a desire to allow people to carry their book library around with them and read on personal devices, a vision which will now be possible following the transaction.

Michael Cornish, CEO of Tesco Digital Entertainment and former CEO of blinkbox, comments, ‘We want our customers to have the widest choice in digital entertainment.

‘We are already one of the UK’s largest booksellers and Mobcast will help us offer even more choice for the large and growing number of customers who want to buy and enjoy books on their digital devices whenever and wherever they want.’