Powering the world's
content ecosystem

NewsCred’s mission is to put content at the heart of every business. By fusing game-changing technology, premium content and an experienced editorial team, we’re reinventing the way content is distributed, consumed and shared across the social web.

There's a shift in the way we consume content today

About Us

Today, every brand is a media brand. Marketers are becoming publishing powerhouses, relying on shareable content to build their brands, engage customers and drive leads. Likewise, publishers are innovating on social platforms, experimenting with new ad models and even introducing e-commerce as a core offer. The traditional divide between marketers, publishers, agencies and consumers has dissolved – and it's requiring all of us to reconsider our content ecosystems.

At NewsCred, we’re leading the charge. Known for our powerful technology, creative content strategies and world-class editorial curation, we’re making publishing easier, faster and better.

Our product suite includes end-to-end content solutions: the technology necessary to filter and curate relevant content; the publishing tools needed to design and build campaigns with speed and scale; and the editorial teams needed to bring authenticity to every content experience.

At our core, NewsCred is about relationships. Over the past four years, we’ve built partnerships with over 2,500 amazing publishers, including The New York Times, The Economist, The Guardian, Getty Images, and more. In fact, we’ve built the largest Publisher Network in the world, giving businesses unprecedented access to quality journalism.

The business model for
high-quality journalism is broken.

We’re re-inventing it

By sourcing and licensing trusted content across a broad range of subjects and perspectives, NewsCred delivers millions of dollars of revenue back into the news ecosystem, offering a crucial industry the means not just to survive, but thrive.

Most importantly, we’re raising standards. We license complete articles, pay our publishers and always attribute stories to the journalists who create them.

Our Story

We founded NewsCred in 2008, and this is a story of perseverance. The initial idea for NewsCred was seeded in Dhaka, Bangladesh where we came up with our vision that has guided us ever since: finding a way to surface high quality journalism. At the time, we didn’t know how big a business it could be, but we all knew it was important.

With the three of us working on three corners of the planet (Asif in Philadelphia, Iraj in Dhaka, Shafqat in Geneva), we quietly went about building a consumer facing news site that gave readers the ability to rate, tag, comment and vote on the quality and credibility of news. That is where the NewsCred name came from. It was a bold and ambitious challenge, but ultimately not suited as a scalable business.

Through ups and downs, we iterated quickly and focused on building out the two core assets of our business: premium content and world class technology. We knew that if we could use technology to organize all the world’s news, we could build a company that would have impact on the world.

We tried many models, but the three of us always listened to the market and our customers. And after three years of perseverance, patience and constant iteration, we finally hit our stride and NewsCred blossomed into the business you see today. We moved the headquarters to New York in order to be closer to our partners, customers and investors, but still have a world class team in Dhaka.

We now serve the needs of both publishers and marketers. We’ve doubled down on our core assets, and are privileged to work with some of the smartest and most passionate people in the world. As three Bangladeshis, we’re proud to have built so much of our business in Dhaka, and pouring our energy, finances, heart and soul into the country we are so proud of.

Ultimately, through all the pivots, we’ve never strayed from our core purpose to help journalism survive and thrive. And above all, we’ve learned to never ever, ever, ever give up.

Founders

Shafqat Islam

CEO

Prior to cofounding the company in 2008, he was at Merrill Lynch for six years, working on the technology management team in both New York and Geneva, Switzerland. Shafqat is a member of the Paley Center for Media’s Media Council and serves on the advisory board of their Next Big Thing series. He graduated with a dual degree in computer engineering and economics from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was also a DJ in Philadelphia's glamorous nightlife scene.

Asif Rahman

Co-CTO

Asif wrote the first lines of code for the NewsCred Platform sitting on the couch in his pajamas in New Haven, CT. These days he's running the Platform technology team in New York City. Prior to NewsCred, Asif cut his teeth in startups co-founding Y Combinator recommendation engine startup Youlicit. He holds an engineering degree from the University of Pennsylvania with majors in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Iraj Islam

Co-CTO

Iraj Islam is responsible for the NewsCred Publishing Suite and manages the day to day operations of our Dhaka office. In 2004, Iraj co-founded Swedish web startup Halvera.se and was named Sweden's 3rd hottest Internet entrepreneur by InternetWorld at the age of 22. He studied computer science at the Royal Institute of Technology, gave NewsCred it's name, is an ex-master musical lyricist and a big Barca fan.

NewsCred is thriving as the go-to partner for content marketing solutions with support from the most experienced leaders in the industry. We're backed by global investors including FirstMark Capital, Mayfield Fund, IA Ventures, Greycroft Partners, Floodgate Fund, Lerer Ventures, AOL Ventures and others.

Our Board of Directors includes:

  • Amish Jani, Founder and Managing Director, First Mark Capital
  • Chris Ahearn, former President, Reuters Media
  • Rajeev Batra, Partner, Mayfield Fund