Philippine online news site Rappler raised undisclosed amount from Omidyar Network

Rappler has grown to become among the top 10 new sites in the Philippines based on Alexa and SimilarWeb rankings, reports Tech in Asia

Philippine online news site Rappler announced today it raised an undisclosed amount from Omidyar Network, a fund created by eBay founder and entrepreneur Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam.

The fund invests in “entrepreneurs who share our commitment to advancing social good at the pace and scale the world needs today.”
 

“Rappler is breaking new ground in covering news and developing a reader engagement model that is pioneering and meaningful,” CV Madhukar, Omidyar Network investment partner, says in a statement. 
 

Created in 2012, Rappler is an all-digital news organisation that uses technology and crowdsourcing to disrupt traditional news sites.
 

It has a patented mood metre, which tracks the emotions elicited by its stories, and a mapping tool called Reach that shows how stories move through the community.
 

Rappler’s civic engagement arm Move.ph has a collaborative platform for disaster risk reduction and management called Agos.
 

Yet Rappler’s core is still its investigative and video reports delivered by a team of journalists, led by Maria Ressa, Glenda Gloria, Chay Hofilena, and Beth Frondoso.
 

Maria spent 18 years with CNN, first as Manila bureau chief then another decade as Jakarta bureau chief. She also headed the news and current affairs division of the Philippines’ largest media conglomerate ABS-CBN for six years.
 

Glenda and Chay created investigative news magazine Newsbreak, while Beth used to head newscast production for ABS-CBN.
 

Rappler claims to be the largest independent news group in Southeast Asia, after recently expanding to Indonesia, the region’s biggest economy.

This is an excerpt from Tech in Asia. You can read the full article here.