Japan-based curated news app developer SmartNews received $28m yesterday in a series E round led by mail, courier and logistics services provider Japan Post, according to Bloomberg.
The round valued SmartNews at $1.1bn and Japan Post invested through its corporate venturing subsidiary, Japan Post Capital.
SmartNews has built a news aggregation platform that uses machine learning technology to source articles from media publications and deliver them to a user’s personalised feed. The app forwards readers to the original article, rather than mirroring content.
The app has been downloaded more than 40 million times to date and reportedly has 20 million active users.
The round took SmartNews’ overall funding to $116m according to Bloomberg. The cash will drive continued growth for SmartNews, focusing on US operations where it hopes to counteract media bias in the run up to the 2020 presidential election by delivering coverage from across the political spectrum.
SmartNews was co-founded by co-chief executives Ken Suzuki and Kaisei Hamamoto in 2012. Suzuki earned a PhD in complex systems and artificial life from University of Tokyo in 2006 and has been a project researcher at the institution since then.
Government-owned financial institution Development Bank of Japan led the company’s $38m series D round in 2016 at a reported valuation of $500m to $600m, investing with financial services firm Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation’s SMBC Venture Capital unit, Japan Co-Invest Limited Partnership and angel investor Kotaro Chiba.
Globis Capital Partners had supplied approximately $4m in 2013 for SmartNews before digital media company Gree led a $36m series B round for SmartNews in 2014 that also featured Atomico.
The same two investors returned in 2015 for a $10m bridge round that included social media company Mixi and Social Venture Partners.
The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing.
