SmartNews has launched a rewards programme in the US that allows users to earn points for reading news articles, marking the first initiative of its kind amongst American news apps according to the company's research. Users are automatically enrolled in challenges to earn points by reading a specified number of articles within set timeframes. Points can be redeemed through the Tango Rewards platform for gift cards at retailers like Amazon or charitable donations to organisations including the Special Olympics. The programme follows a successful rollout in Japan and underwent beta testing in the US from December 2025, showing strong adoption. Founded in 2012, SmartNews serves millions of users globally through partnerships with over 3,000 publishers and uses machine learning technology for news discovery.

SmartNews, a news app available in Japan and the US, closed its Series E1 funding round in July 2019, achieving a valuation exceeding ¥100 billion, thus becoming a "unicorn." The funding was led by ACA Investments, with continued support from Globis Capital Partners. The company is focused on expanding in the US market, with plans for an IPO. Key figures involved in the funding include Tetsuya Matsumoto from SmartNews, Hiroyuki Ono from ACA, and Minoru Konno from GCP.

Japan’s startup sector, despite being one of the biggest in the world, has lagged behind other regions like the U.S., China, and the U.K., in terms of the number of unicorns and the scale of venture capital investment. For years, an aging population, overall economic deflation, and salarymen’s inclination to work at traditional, big corporations meant the startup life wasn’t an attractive one for many.For context: Per a recent IMF report that cites CB Insights data, as of October 2023, the U.S. had about 661 unicorns, China counted 172, and the U.K. had 52. Japan had a mere seven unicorns. (PitchBook pegs the number of Japanese startups at nine, so it’s possible we have more unicorns in the market than these datasets suggest.)But things are looking up — somewhat