News curation startup Gunosy fundraises $12 million from KDDI

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Gunosy CEO Yoshinori Fukushima

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese telco KDDI announced today that it has invested in Gunosy, the creator of a popular news curation app of the same name. Details of the investment were not disclosed but it’s likely worth somewhere from $12 million to $14 million according to certain sources. Coinciding with this funding, the startup is set to begin broadcast of a TV commercial in Japan tomorrow.

Gunosy previously raised 31.6 million yen (about $300,000) back in February of 2013, and an undisclosed amount back in July of 2013. We have also confirmed they secured a seed round funding from several investors including B Dash Ventures.

Gunosy was launched back in October of 2011 by three graduate students (Yoshinori Fukushima, Yoshifumi Seki, and Koji Yoshida) at the University of Tokyo. They incorporated their company in November, and co-CEO Shinji Kimura came on to help manage the company last October.

Their main revenue stream has been Gunosy Ads, which have performanced well since launching last November. That feature was instrumental in helping them raise so much funds this time around.

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From the left: Co-CEO Yoshinori Fukushima, Co-CEO Shinji Kimura, COO Yuya Taketani