Start-up whips up €6m in new funding

NewsWhip co-founders Andrew Mullaney and Paul Quigley. Photo: Conor McCabe Photography

Donal O'Donovan

Dublin media-technology start-up NewsWhip has raised $6.4m (€6m) in a funding round to support development of the business. It is the second large fundraising in just a year for the company.

The Dublin-based online media-aggregation startup founded by Paul Quigley and Andrew Mullaney relaunched, after an initial false start in 2010, as a service for publishers and public relations companies showing them which stories were trending, on which platforms and where.

The idea is to help clients predict trends, track social media influencers and respond with targeted editorial strategies.

The Series A funding round was led by existing investors Tribal Ventures and the Associated Press, with backing from clients of Cantor Fitzgerald in Dublin.

Newswhip backers Enterprise Ireland, Matter VC, Social Starts, and AIB Seed Capital Fund and Japanese Publisher Asahi Shimbun also participated.

A funding round in 2015of $1.6m (€1.4m) was backed by Associated Press, AIB Seed Capital Fund and Tribal.vc and followed a €1m capital raising in 2013.

NewsWhip is used by big players in the media world, including BuzzFeed, Bloomberg and the 'Daily Mail'.

The company has a staff of 50 in two offices in Dublin and New York. The business had customers in 40 countries and millions in revenue, according to founder Paul Quigley.