By: Richard Zack, CEO and Founder, Our.News
Our.News Raises $100k Pre-Seed Funding; Announces Partnership with John Zogby Strategies to Grow Crowdsourced News Validation Platform
World-renowned pollster to help Our.News bring its revolutionary news platform to the public.
With more than 82% of the public sometimes finding it difficult to know what’s true online, Our.News provides a neutral, transparent and effective solutions.
Our.News is an Upstate startup located in Troy, NY on a mission to combat misinformation and fake news by making it easy for everyone to separate fact from fiction, and to judge for themselves what is factual, well-reported and unbiased–and what isn’t?
After graduating from the IgniteU NY accelerator last summer, I have been venturing forward at full-throttle, recently having secured a successful pre-seed funding raise of $100,000. Our.News has also developed a strategic partnership with world-renowned pollster and UNY50 Leadership Network member, John Zogby. I’m thankful to Upstate Venture Connect for making the introduction. The connection has resulted in a huge milestone for our company.
Zogby joins Our.News in its mission to sort out misinformation online, and will help our startup bring its revolutionary platform to the public. Using a combination of crowdsourcing and patent-pending algorithms to provide neutral background data, ratings, sources, related articles, and more, the platform allows anyone to participate in the news by simplifying fact-checking, and letting users rate news content on various factors.
The pre-seed funding raise will be used to build upon our existing Beta prototype, with the goal of a fully-featured production release in Q2 2018.
“In the age of ‘alternative facts,’ and a crowded media landscape where it can often be difficult to separate fact from fiction, it has never been more important to have verified sources of ‘real news,’ and that’s what Our.News is all about,” said John Zogby. “Innovations like Our.News empower our citizens and our democracy. I’m thrilled to be a part of this exceptional team!”
Zogby recently launched a new company, John Zogby Strategies (JZS), with his sons, Jeremy and Benjamin. He will partner with Our.News to provide feedback and advice throughout the platform build, and contribute to content rating and analysis.
With four decades of experience in polling, data analysis, and advising the world’s most important companies on game-changing technologies I couldn’t be more thrilled to venture forward with John Zogby at my side. Our approach combines transparency in the news with public participation, rebuilding trust in legitimate news publishers and helping users to separate fact from fiction.
Our.News also recently announced a partnership with Educational Vistas, Inc. of Schenectady, NY, to give students at over 350 school districts across New York State the free tools they need to fact-check and participate in news validation. Together with the pre-seed raise and Zogby partnership, this marks a major stage of development in Our.News’ growth.
