Newswire startup NewsCred picks up $15M and partners with NYT

Media businesses, especially those based online, count on a variety of sources of revenue to pay the bills, but not a lot of time to deal with the contractual agreements on an individual basis — which is something newswire startup NewsCred is doing pretty well.

And as part of its success, the startup just raised a fresh $15 million round of funding led by Mayfield Fund, with participation by new investor Greycroft Partners and existing investors FirstMark Capital and IA Ventures.

NewsCred is attempting to reinvent the newswire business model that you’ve undoubtedly seen done in the past by the Associated Press. Unlike the AP, the startup doesn’t produce its own news, but it does offer to cut through all the red tape associated with syndicating premium content of third-party publications such as The Economist, Bloomberg, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, TheNextWeb, and as of today, the New York Times. Its clients (brands like Pepsi and GE) get access to premium content and use NewsCred as a middleman to handle all the licensing and payment details. NewsCred also purchased cloud-based publishing tools platform Daylife back in October to strengthen its service for clients.

The company, which is profitable, said it saw its revenue increase “11-fold” and experienced a 570 percent increase in new customers. NewsCred said it plans to use the additional capital to continue growing its newswire service for clients.

Founded in 2008, the New York-based startup previously raised a $750,000 seed round from Floodgate, IA Ventures, and Naval Ravikant and a $4 million series A round of fundingled by FirstMark, with participation from Lerer Ventures, AOL Ventures, Advancit Capital, and other prior investors. NewsCred has raised just under $20 million in funding to date.

Photo via New York Times