Fwix Launches Open Wire API Platform, Discloses Series A Funding Amount

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - September 17, 2009) - Fwix, the new real-time local newswire, today announced that it will be opening its API platform, giving bloggers and site publishers the ability to add local news to their sites and applications to better serve readers. The company also revealed the amount of its Series A funding -- $2.75 million from BlueRun Ventures, veteran start-up backers of innovative companies such as PayPal and Slide. The investment will continue the rapid expansion of the Fwix network and its proprietary breakthrough technology.

"Our goal is to bring the best and most relevant local content to the largest readership possible," said Darian Shirazi, founder and CEO of Fwix. "For the past few months, our API has been used by a number of partners and now we're pleased to open it to everyone. Additionally, BlueRun's investment only accelerates our goal to become the local newswire."

"We see Fwix as a key company in helping everyone from big online media outlets to smaller local news bloggers reach larger audiences with the most relevant quality content," said Jonathan Ebinger from BlueRun Ventures. "This enables sites to better monetize a larger audience, while readers simply receive the best local content available. It's not often that we find bankable companies whose clear path to success really offers the potential to lift up an entire industry, but we've found that in Fwix."

Fwix combines local news with local blog content and stories reported from the street for a comprehensive view of a given city's news. The new Wire API allows people to both get specific content from and deliver newsworthy content to the Wire. Site owners can find the Wire API at fwix.com/api and the widget builder at the Fwix builder page.

Fwix's content network audience has grown to 9 million unique visitors per month and Fwix is currently available in nearly 80 U.S. and Canadian cities.

About BlueRun Ventures

Launched in 1998, BlueRun Ventures is a leading early stage venture capital fund. BlueRun Ventures' proven approach is to invest globally as a single fund in best-of-breed technologies and teams with the drive and ability to build leading global companies. BlueRun Ventures is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, with offices in Beijing, Helsinki, Herzelia (Israel), Mumbai, Seoul, and Shanghai. For more information, visit www.brv.com.

About Fwix

Founded in 2008, Fwix is the new newswire -- the people's newswire -- that delivers locally relevant news as it happens and allows people to find and contribute stories that are targeted to local communities. Fwix offers the most advanced platform for finding, aggregating, optimizing, and categorizing news and brings together citizen journalists, news organizations and distribution technology to deliver a new model for news creation and consumption. Fwix is headquartered in San Francisco. To tap into Fwix, start breaking stories, or find out more about the content network, please visit www.fwix.com.

Contact Information: Contact: Peter Evers or Emilie Cole 415-625-8555 fwix [at] launchsquad [dot] com