Announcing our Series A Financing
We’re very happy to announce today that we have raised $9 million in Series A financing from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Greycroft Partners, and Lerer Ventures. The capital will allow us to grow our engineering team and expand to additional platforms. We are also excited to announce that NEA’s co-head of consumer investing, Patrick Chung, will join our board of directors and Greycroft Managing Director Alan Patricof and Lerer Ventures Manager and Huffington Post co-founder Ken Lerer will serve as trusted Advisors.
Not only do our partners have a deep understanding of mobile and Web, they share our philosophy of always putting product first. Alan and Ken were part of the original team who financed the Huffington Post, and we look forward to leveraging the insight they gained from building a new paradigm in news. This, combined with the consumer expertise that Patrick and NEA brings, gives us a team that will help us continue to innovate.
Pulse has seen solid growth in the last six months, surpassing 4 million users across all platforms, and was recently recognized for its category-defining design with an Apple Design Award, which recognizes excellence in iPhone, iPad and Mac app design.
Here are some comments from our investors:
“Before Pulse, keeping up with even a small selection of newspapers, magazines, and blogs was a jumbled, stressful, incomplete experience,” said Chung. “With a maniacal focus on every element of a user’s experience, Pulse’s gorgeous sliding tiles have paved over this rough terrain, won critical design awards, and attracted and retained a large and loyal user base, with a lot more to come. No one has done more to bring joy back to reading.”
“The Pulse team understands product design and how consumers interact with mobile content,” said Lerer. “They essentially created the news reader category when they launched on the iPad, and are redefining how people consume news.”
“The combination of technology and talent that the team at Pulse brings together has enabled them to jump to the head of the pack in providing customized news and related sources to readers of all iPad, iPhone, and Android devices,” said Patricof, a veteran media investor who founded and served as chairman of both New York Magazine and Details Magazine.
A huge shout out for Mayfield Fund, Lightspeed Partners, Redpoint Ventures, BV Capital, SV Angel, Emily Melton, Michael Dearing and Ali Rosenthal for continuing to support our company. We’re very excited about working with our partners.
- Pulse Team
