User-generated site lands $10.6M in funding

A Vancouver-based Internet company is aiming to become the world's largest news agency by leveraging the content created by regular people all over the world.

NowPublic is a website based in Vancouver, started by entrepreneurs Howard Brody, Michael Meyers and Michael Tippet, in whose Vancouver garage the company was housed when it started in 2005.

Users can add text, images and audio they deem newsworthy to the website. According to NowPublic, the website is growing at a rate of 35 per cent every month and Time magazine listed NowPublic as one of the top 50 websites of 2007.

NowPublic recently secured US$10.6 million dollars in funding from New York-based company Rho Ventures.

 
While Brody joked the company will be building 'a huge golden toilet' in the company office with the money, he indicated the new financial injection would be largely directed towards improving the technology powering the site and beginning to pay contributors.