NewsCred today announced a $15 million Series B round of funding, and the addition of the New York Times as a partner. The funding was led by Mayfield Fund, and participated in by Greycroft Partners – a new investor – and several former investors, including IA Ventures and FirstMark Capital.
The addition of the New York Times as a partner isn’t determative to the company. However, it is illustrative of how the company is currently performing, with its product to deliver content via partners to brands looking to build what it refers to as “experiences.”
NewsCred’s method of connecting partner publications to any company looking for content – pick a vertical, the firm has 2,500 partners – has seen self-described explosive success in 2012. According to its release, and conversation with TNW, NewsCred has reported revenues up eleven times over in the year, and customer growth spiking to 570% in the same period.
If you aren’t familiar with NewsCred, publications that you read are. TNW, along with VentureBeat, Forbes, and Gizmodo are partners with the company
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The company has bigger partners than your humble servant blog, however, as the New York Times joins the company’s relationship with The Economist among others.
The component that adds to NewsCred’s proposition to companies looking to employ content in their brand work – which can be as varied as the larger advertising world – is that it helps to filter and, excuse the overused word, “curate” its incoming firehose of words.
Syndicated content, in case you were curious, maintains by-line status and is noted as from $publication_x. $15 million is a truckload of funds for a company of NewsCred’s size, given its advanced stage of monetization. View it as an accelerant.
The company had raised a total of $5 million previously.
The company is a bet that ‘content marketing’ is the destination for a massive chunk of total advertising spend. Greycroft Partners, one of the new backers of the firm, claims that “[m]ore than 30% of marketers’ budgets will be devoted to content marketing this year.” If that figure holds up, NewsCred may be in a unique position with the relationships in place to feed marketing groups hungry for words.
Top Image Credit: Joe Shlabotnik
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