Web Publishing Startup, Crowd Fusion, Raises $3 Million

By Irina Guseva | Published Aug 5, 2008

The new player on the web publishing arena, Crowd Fusion, is building a platform “to solve the pain points of publishers at scale.” And now the company has more money to accomplish this mission, as it has closed a US$3 million Series A funding that was dominated by Velocity Interactive Group and accompanied by Greycroft Partners and an entrepreneur Marc Andreesen.

Crowd Fusion will use the investment to build out its platform, expand its editorial team and create its first wave of destination sites. Crowd Fusion also aims to “revolutionize online publishing with a unique combination of technology and strategy.” This is a quote from “Thanks for signing-up” automated response that we received, as the company is not saying much about itself on the web site.

However, the one-pager company web site does highlight the people standing behind this venture. Crowd Fusion is founded by a Weblogs Inc. co-creator Brian Alvey, who brings his understanding of content author and publisher needs to the table.

“We believe in Brian's innovative vision for a new publishing company,” said Jon Miller of Velocity Interactive Group.

Crowd Fusion’s management team also includes Judith Meskill, COO, and Steve Friedman, CMO, team. Both are former colleagues of Alvey at Weblogs, Inc. and AOL.

Craig Wood, Crowd Fusion’s CTO, has been with the company for a year now, as he reminisces about it on his personal blog. The blog also sheds light into the rest of Crowd Fusion's team; they are blog geeks, podcast gurus, web mavericks and such.

Currently, Crowd Fusion is not accepting any customers and is testing out its “unique” platform. The company will be launching the first of its sites in the fall of 2008. Stay tuned for more news!