NewsCred, a Content Marketing Start-Up, Raises $25 Million

Doug Pepper, a venture capitalist, spent two years researching one particular type of start-up, those that help companies find articles and other content to use in marketing.

He finally found his mark. NewsCred, which licenses articles from major publications and also draws upon a network of freelance writers, announced on Thursday that it had raised a $25 million round of financing, led by Mr. Pepper’s firm, InterWest Partners.

NewsCred had not been planning to raise money so soon, according to Shafqat Islam, its chief executive and co-founder. The start-up, which is based in New York, secured $15 million last March from investors including the venture capital firms Mayfield Fund and Greycroft Partners.

But Mr. Pepper wanted in. The company did not disclose the valuation at which it raised the new money, but confirmed that it was between $100 million and $200 million. Mr. Islam called it “pretty aggressive.”

“A year ago, when we did our Series B, we were educating the investors,” Mr. Islam said, referring to the previous round of financing. “We had to teach them about content marketing. In the span of a few months, it has completely flipped around.”

What changed, Mr. Islam said, was that big companies increased their use of social media and other online channels for marketing. Now, they needed content to share with their Twitter followers and visitors to their websites.

NewsCred sells software that helps companies find articles they feel would bolster their marketing efforts. The start-up has licensing deals with a number of big publications, including The New York Times, allowing companies to publish those articles on their own websites.

In addition, NewsCred has a network of freelancers, who get paid to write articles that support a company’s point of view. One rival, Contently, was recently the subject of a column by David Carr in The Times.

Mr. Pepper, who is joining the board of NewsCred, said he was attracted to the company’s software. NewsCred says its revenue grew fivefold last year, with clients including Procter & Gamble, Bank of America and Sprint.

Existing NewsCred investors, including Mayfield Fund, FirstMark Capital and IA Ventures, participated in the latest financing round.

“Producing high quality content,” Mr. Pepper said, is “core to any marketing process.” He added: “We became very compelled by the vision of creating a marketing platform to serve that need.”