SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 09/17/09 -- Fwix,
the new real-time local newswire, today announced that it will be opening
its API platform, giving bloggers and site publishers the ability to add
local news to their sites and applications to better serve readers. The
company also revealed the amount of its Series A funding -- $2.75 million
from BlueRun Ventures, veteran start-up backers of innovative companies
such as PayPal and Slide. The investment will continue the rapid expansion
of the Fwix network and its proprietary breakthrough technology.
"Our goal is to bring the best and most relevant local content to the
largest readership possible," said Darian Shirazi, founder and CEO of Fwix.
"For the past few months, our API has been used by a number of partners and
now we're pleased to open it to everyone. Additionally, BlueRun's
investment only accelerates our goal to become the local newswire."
"We see Fwix as a key company in helping everyone from big online media
outlets to smaller local news bloggers reach larger audiences with the most
relevant quality content," said Jonathan Ebinger from BlueRun Ventures.
"This enables sites to better monetize a larger audience, while readers
simply receive the best local content available. It's not often that we
find bankable companies whose clear path to success really offers the
potential to lift up an entire industry, but we've found that in Fwix."
Fwix combines local news with local blog content and stories reported from
the street for a comprehensive view of a given city's news. The new Wire
API allows people to both get specific content from and deliver newsworthy
content to the Wire. Site owners can find the Wire API at fwix.com/api and the widget builder
at the Fwix builder page.
Fwix's content network audience has grown to 9 million unique visitors per
month and Fwix is currently available in nearly 80 U.S. and Canadian
cities.
About BlueRun Ventures
Launched in 1998, BlueRun Ventures is a leading early stage venture capital
fund. BlueRun Ventures' proven approach is to invest globally as a single
fund in best-of-breed technologies and teams with the drive and ability to
build leading global companies. BlueRun Ventures is headquartered in Menlo
Park, California, with offices in Beijing, Helsinki, Herzelia (Israel),
Mumbai, Seoul, and Shanghai. For more information, visit www.brv.com.
About Fwix
Founded in 2008, Fwix is the new newswire -- the people's newswire -- that
delivers locally relevant news as it happens and allows people to find and
contribute stories that are targeted to local communities. Fwix offers the
most advanced platform for finding, aggregating, optimizing, and
categorizing news and brings together citizen journalists, news
organizations and distribution technology to deliver a new model for news
creation and consumption. Fwix is headquartered in San Francisco. To tap
into Fwix, start breaking stories, or find out more about the content
network, please visit www.fwix.com.
.gif)
