Informed raises five million euros

The start-up has built a news app that manually curates news from well-known media outlets.

The Berlin-based start-up Informed has successfully completed its seed financing round and raised five million euros. Informed intends to use the money to further develop its product and expand its team. Venture capitalist HV Capital, based in Munich and Berlin, led the round. The German-American venture capital firm 468 Capital also participated. It had led Informed's pre-seed round last year. One million euros was raised in that round.

The start-up has developed a platform that enables its users to read news from various media with just one subscription. The company works with the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Economist, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Telegraph, Reuters and Foreign Policy, among others.

The news is curated and bundled in the app, which is due to be launched this year. According to the company, this will be done by employees - and not just algorithms. This is the best way "to provide different perspectives across the political spectrum, from a variety of national and international sources, small and large publishers, Western and non-Western publishers alike", the company explains in a press release.

The founders who launched Informed in 2021 previously worked at major digital and media companies: Benjamin Mateev came from Wunderlist and Microsoft, Martin Kaelble had worked at Capital and Financial Times Deutschland and Axel Bard Bringéus had worked at Spotify and EQT Ventures.