NowPublic Raises $1.4-million

Vancouver-based NowPublic.com, one of the leading community journalism sites, has finally disclosed the details about its US$1.4-million angel financing round. The line-up of investors is pretty impressive: BrightSpark Ventures and several veteran angel investors including members of the New York Angels as well as current and former executives from Nokia, Register.com, Infospace, Microsoft, Alliance Atlantis (rumoured to be executive chairman Michael MacMillan) and Warner Bros. TV. NowPublic plans to use the money to grow its community journalism base and deliver its "On Demand Reporting" system to content owners such as newspapers. A telling comment about the state of Web 2.0 in Canada was made by Brightspark partner Mark Skapinker, who said "We are delighted to be a part of NowPublic. We are big believers in the growth of participatory news and are excited that this is our first foray into the Web 2.0 market.