PressReader, the Vancouver-based global ‘all you can read’ newspaper and magazine platform, is to buy News360 for its content personalisation capability. PressReader will incorporate News360’s NativeAI technology within its subscription platform.
PressReader was founded as Newspapers Direct in 1990. It now offers a $30/month subscription to over 7k news titles. It employs more than 500 people, principally in Canada but also in Ireland and the Philippines, had revenue of $28.4m and made a 10% pre-tax profit margin in 2017-18. Despite the quaint branding, PressReader claims more than 20% of the direct, paying subscribers to its app are under 35.
News360 was a 2010 startup. In a statement, PressReader CEO Alex Kroogman said “In a world where news fatigue is a real and growing problem, and media literacy a global concern, it’s more important than ever for people to have access to the trusted content they need in an engaging environment… we will be able to give our millions of readers the trusted media they want, how they want it, when they want it, and where they want it, while building more audience intelligence into the data that drives our publisher and brand partnerships.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. News360 had raised a total of $7.5m from investors.
