SmartNews is the app that aggregates news, stories, and events from more than 200 local news websites. It analyzes a great number of articles to find and deliver the top ones. Simply speaking, it is a free newsreader app with news divided into categories: entertainment, politics, sport, etc.
The new funding round Series F includes both new and existing investors. Among new investors were two from the US – Princeville Capital and Woodline Partners, and several from Japan – JIC Venture Growth Investments, Green Co-Invest Investment, and Yamauchi-No.10 Family Office. Existing investors ACA Investments and SMBC Venture Capital also participated.
SmartNews was launched in 2012 in Japan by Ken Suzuki and Kaisei Hamamoto. In the beginning, it focused only on the Japanese audience. However, as of now the company is present in the USA and is going to expand its presence. 100 of 500 employees work in the US., and this number is planned to double. The company has more than 3000 publisher partnerships across the world. At that moment SmartNews is one of the most valuable news aggregation apps.
