On Tuesday, digital news wire startup Zenger News announced that it raised $10 million in its seed funding round. This funding comes from a handful of investors, including descendent of author Alexis de Tocqueville, Jean-Guillaume de Tocqueville, as well as former reporter and Al Sharpton press spokesman Andre M. Johnson.
Plenty of news outlets have adapted to the digital environment in order to survive, but Zenger’s business model is unique. Zenger is a news wire service, which means it doesn’t directly publish its own content; instead, it employs a network of journalists to create written and video content, which is then provided to news outlets at no cost.
Like other publications, Zenger makes money through advertising but it has developed a unique software that connects advertisers to news content through an open bidding process. Advertising revenue is then shared with the outlets hosting Zenger content. It also makes money through affiliate links, article and video licensing fees, software licensing fees and conference sponsorships.
Zenger aims to be politically unbiased and does not take money from any government. On top of that, the majority of the company is owned by the journalists who work at Zenger. Meanwhile, outside investors, like the ones who participated in this round, own a minority stake in the company.
This funding will help the company enhance its software and onboard more news organizations to the Zenger model. Zenger provides content in both English and Spanish to news organizations across the world, including ones in the United States, Mexico, Central America, South Asia and the Middle East.
“We are heartened by the wide-ranging support we have received from investors, who recognize the great potential of Zenger’s model to generate the highest quality news as well as significant returns,” Zenger CEO Richard Miniter said in a statement. “$10 million is a huge raise for a Series Seed in a media-tech startup, and therefore a huge vote of confidence.”
Zenger employs over 40 full-time editors and has built a network of over 2,300 registered journalists. Although the company is headquartered in Austin, this network is spread out across the U.S. as well as 109 countries.
