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NewsBreak

Runs a personalized local news app for US readers

Overview

NewsBreak runs a free app and website that gather local and national news for readers across the United States and sort it by ZIP code and by each reader's interests. In 2022, it launched a national network of independent local writers to cover communities that get little attention from traditional media. Its software pulls articles from local outlets, national publishers, and its own contributors into a single feed, and the app sends nearby alerts about crime, weather, and traffic. NewsBreak makes money by selling ads, including to local businesses, and shares ad revenue with partner publishers. It was founded in 2015 and is based in Mountain View, California.

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About NewsBreak

Simplify's Rating
Why NewsBreak is rated
C+
Rated C on Competitive Edge
Rated B on Growth Potential
Rated C on Differentiation

Industries

Consumer SoftwareEntertainment

Company Size

201-500

Company Stage

Series C

Total Funding

$139.8M

Headquarters

Mountain View, California

Founded

2015

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Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Work reaches a national audience: NewsBreak serves 40 million monthly US users and runs 100,000 ad campaigns a month.
  • New businesses create room to grow: 11 of NewsBreak's 58 openings in October 2026 staff new AI and video ventures.
  • Its article linking won on appeal: an August 2026 ruling cleared it of copyright display claims, though one claim continues.

What critics are saying

  • Neighborhood app Nextdoor competes for local readers: it carried news from over 4,000 local publishers by February 2026.
  • Stock options lack a recent price: NewsBreak's last announced funding was a $115 million round in January 2021.
  • Expect office-based work: only 2 of NewsBreak's 58 open jobs in October 2026 allow remote work.

What makes NewsBreak unique

  • Email is a second front door: about 30 million people get NewsBreak's personalized newsletters, with 50 million sent daily.
  • It opens its tech to publishers: Weather.com cut ad review work 80% using ClearStream, NewsBreak's AI screener, by December 2025.
  • Its playbook comes from China: its CEO modeled NewsBreak on Yidian Zixun, the Beijing news app he started after Yahoo.

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Funding

Total Funding

$139.8M

Above

Industry Average

Funded Over

3 Rounds

Series C funding is usually for startups that are doing well and are looking for more money to fuel major growth, such as acquiring other companies, expanding into global markets, or launching new product lines. Investors typically include larger venture capital firms and private equity.
Series C Funding Comparison
Above Average

Industry standards

$50M
$50M
$62M
$100M
$115M

Benefits

  • Health Insurance
  • Dental Insurance
  • Vision Insurance
  • 401(k) Retirement Plan
  • 401(k) Company Match
  • Paid Vacation
  • Paid Sick Leave
  • Paid Holidays
  • Paid Parental Leave
  • Health Savings Account/Flexible Spending Account
  • Commuter Benefits
  • Team Activity Budget

Company News

PR Newswire
Sep 15th, 2026
NewsBreak appoints Nicolas Zylberstein as chief business officer to lead AI expansion

NewsBreak has appointed Nicolas Zylberstein as its first Chief Business Officer. He will lead growth across NewsBreak's flagship local news platform and two new AI ventures: Nearby AI and NDot AI. Nearby AI is an agentic local intent marketplace connecting consumers with local businesses. NDot AI is a B2B media tech platform helping publishers grow and monetise audiences. Both platforms leverage NewsBreak's decade of experience serving over 40 million monthly active users. Zylberstein joins from ByteDance, where he spent six years driving AI partnerships and working on TikTok Shop's early launch. He previously held senior roles at Pinterest, YouTube, and The Walt Disney Company, contributing to Pinterest's IPO and the launches of YouTube Premium and Disney+.

PR Newswire
May 6th, 2026
NewsBreak launches Spotlights to connect small businesses with 40M local readers

NewsBreak, America's leading local news app, has launched SPOTLIGHTS, a programme helping small businesses reach local customers through storytelling. Business owners answer questions to create articles, which are then published on NewsBreak and distributed to the platform's 40 million monthly active users via hyperlocal targeting and push notifications. Early results from 750 participating businesses show strong engagement, generating 76 million impressions, 1.52 million views and over 19,000 shares. One participant, Hello Uncle pop-up restaurant, gained over 200 Instagram followers and sold out events following their article. The programme, available at localbusiness.newsbreak.com, includes one feature article and push notification free of charge. Founded in 2015, Mountain View-based NewsBreak reached unicorn status in 2021.

VentureBeat
May 22nd, 2025
Time Magazine Appears To Accidentally Publish Embargoed Story Confirming New Anthropic Model

Join our daily and weekly newsletters for the latest updates and exclusive content on industry-leading AI coverage. Learn More. The San Francisco-based AI startup Anthropic had already informed the general public that it planned to make an announcement today, Thursday, May 22nd with a livestream scheduled for 9:30 am PT.Many in the wider AI power user community, especially on X, began to theorize that the announcement would mark the launch of a new Claude model codenamed “Neptune,” based on earlier inspection of Anthropic documents and code online, which some took to be a new version of its powerful Claude large language model (LLM) family, potentially the long-awaited “Claude 4 Opus,” a larger-parameter (denoting more internal settings and complexity) model successor to the current Claude 3.7 Sonnet.Now, it appears that Time Magazine has accidentally confirmed that rumor, publishing and quickly removing an article on its website, according to the observations of eagle-eyed AI programmers and news bloggers on X.Someone also appears to have published a full scrape of the Time article online on the news aggregator app Newsbreak, though that too has now been taken offline. The focus of Time’s piece is on Claude 4 Opus’s safety risks and mitigations, but it does reveal that the new Claude is smart enough to potentially help novices create new bioweapons.There are scant specifics about the model size, cost, licensing terms, and performance on commonly used third-party AI benchmarks. For those, we will just have to wait until more information is revealed by Anthropic — or leaked by members of the press and AI community. Daily insights on business use cases with VB Daily

Securities.io
Mar 4th, 2025
Decentralized Networks Primed To Advance Autonomous Vehicles

Decentralized intelligence networks could hold the key to making self-driving cars smarter and safer. Many see these vehicles as the future of travel. However, there are still several problems that manufacturers and regulators need to work out.At their core, self-driving vehicles rely on sensors and other data to stay on course, avoid obstacles, and safely deliver passengers to their destinations. These sensors can include LiDAR, radar, thermal imaging, and other advanced systems. All of these systems create a data footprint that can be used to improve the car's performance in the future.Federated LearningOne way that manufacturers have found to improve their vehicles' self-driving performance is to enable their cars to share this data using a system called federated learning. Federated Learning (FL) is a distributed machine learning approach where individual vehicles train models locally and share only model updates with a central server

PYMNTS
Feb 26th, 2024
Report: Paytm Turning To Banks To Process Upi Transactions

Embattled Indian FinTech Paytm is reportedly turning to a group of banks for help. The company is likely to work with Aix Bank, HDFC, Yes Bank and the State Bank of India to process transactions though India’s popular unified payments interface (UPI), Reuters reported Monday (Feb. 26), citing two sources familiar with the matter. The news comes as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India’s central bank and banking regulator, has asked Paytm’s banking operations — Paytm Payments Bank — to shutter its business

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