Citizen Journalism Hub Helium.Com Secures $17M in Series a Funding

ANDOVER, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Helium (www.Helium.com), the online destination to learn what you need and share what you know, today announced the close of over $17M in Series A funding. Investments from an international group of investors, led by Signature Capital LLC and including Northport Private Equity, will help the citizen journalism hub continue to build tight partnerships with leading publishers and provide support for the launch of new digital media products.

“This round of funding ensures the continued growth of Helium, and will further enable the implementation of our plans for expanded services that will benefit all of our users.”

“Helium’s unique platforms put the power of citizen engagement behind media publications, enabling them to engage readers in a way that will help grow audiences and increase reader loyalty,” said Bill Turner, Principal, Signature Capital LLC. “With Helium.com, we are bringing our financial resources to further accelerate this growth in citizen journalism, and to support Helium’s objectives towards providing solutions to newspapers at a time when budgets are shrinking and ad revenues are down.”

“The driving factor behind our investment in Helium Inc. is our belief that they’ve created a technology platform that will be transformative to the world of authored and published material, allowing for the lowest-cost creation of the highest quality content,” said Eric Reed, General Partner at Northport Private Equity. “Helium’s platforms serve to bridge the gap between the world of traditional published media and the growing online marketplace, providing solutions for participants across these mediums resulting in an invaluable tool for authors, publishers, advertisers, media outlets and the communities they service.”

Helium.com currently has community of over 150,000 writers, who cover everything from politics to parenting advice, to pop culture, to the environment and more. The company recently announced a change to Helium’s Terms of Service by which starred writers on Helium.com will receive upfront payments for all new articles in a move to reward the site’s highest quality writers and to promote quality content at Helium.com.

The website also features The Helium Marketplace, which is an on-demand custom content solution used by publishers looking for top-notch content for their publications. Helium also recently announced the launch of Media Solutions, a revolutionary way for newspapers to easily produce quality, custom, local and lifestyle content. Helium’s Media Solutions puts the power of citizen engagement behind media publications, giving them access to quality content that is cost-effective and easy to manage.

“Since our launch two years ago, we have consistently sought to improve the Helium experience for both our writers and the publishers that rely on our site for access to top-notch content,” said Mark Ranalli, CEO of Helium.com. “This round of funding ensures the continued growth of Helium, and will further enable the implementation of our plans for expanded services that will benefit all of our users.”

About Helium

Helium is the online destination to learn what you need and share what you know. Helium goes beyond search, bringing together real advice from real people on a wide variety of topics. Helium combines citizen journalism with a simple yet highly effective peer-rating process that pushes the best content to the top, whether there are 5 or 500 articles on a topic. Helium is a fun community for people who are passionate about a topic to read, write and rate articles and be rewarded for their efforts. Try it now at www.Helium.com.