On June 11, 2024, the California-based AI news reading app startupParticleannounced it had raised $10.9 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from global media company Axel Springer, which owns well-known media outlets including Business Insider, Politico, Welt, and Bild. Prior to the Series A round, Particle had raised $4.4 million in seed funding in April 2023.
The company plans to use the funds raised to hire for key positions, including backend engineers, SRE, community lead, and media partnerships lead, as well as to further develop its iOS app, which is in private testing, and plans to expand to Web and Android platforms in the future.
Particle was founded in February 2023 by former Twitter engineers. The company's two co-founders are Sara Beykpour and Marcel Molina, with Sara Beykpour having previously been a senior director of product management at Twitter, and Marcel Molina having previously served as a senior engineer at Twitter and Tesla. Particle has developed a news reading app that uses artificial intelligence technology to aggregate news from multiple publishers, helping readers understand stories from different angles and providing news summaries, aiming to provide readers with a personalized news experience while ensuring they can access diverse perspectives.
(Source:TechCrunch）