paidContent - Local Newswire Fwix Raises First Round
This story was written by David Kaplan.
Fwix, a hyperlocal newswire launching with sites for 72 cites on Monday, has raised an undisclosed first round from BlueRun Ventures. The San Francisco company was founded last November by 22-year-old CEO Darian Shirazi, a former engineer at Facebook and eBay. Aside from the first round, a Fwix rep said the company raised a small seed round previously. Shirazi is promising real-time local news and is adding mobile user updates, including the now-requisite iPhone app. The company claims 8 million unique visitors per month across its North American city sites during its beta phase.
In addition to its sites, Fwix also offers a “network of widgets,” which it is pitching to local newspapers and other publishers as a way to get its content viewed by more users. On top of that, the company says it can track local trends, identifying a citys most popular articles, possibly offering ways of increasing publishers’ ad revenue. In its coverage, the NYT points out that Twitter has done a pretty good job of serving up on-the-go news. But Shirazi says Fwix is able to be more selective and therefore more relevant when it comes to filtering its news updates.
By David Kaplan