By Jaspreet Singh Jan 7 (Reuters) – Digital media startup Semafor said on Wednesday it has raised $30 million at a $330 million valuation, which it intends to use as part of a global expansion and hire more journalists, following its first profitable year. New backers including Penny Pritzker’s investment firm PSP, Belgian entrepreneur Thomas […]
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Semafor hits $330 million valuation in latest fundraise to fuel global expansion
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By Jaspreet Singh
Jan 7 (Reuters) – Digital media startup Semafor said on Wednesday it has raised $30 million at a $330 million valuation, which it intends to use as part of a global expansion and hire more journalists, following its first profitable year.
New backers including Penny Pritzker’s investment firm PSP, Belgian entrepreneur Thomas Leysen and Antenna Group took part in the funding round. More than half of the funding came from existing backers such as KKR co-founder Henry Kravis, David Rubenstein of Carlyle Group and Gallup.
Launched in 2022 by former BuzzFeed News editor Ben Smith and ex-CEO of Bloomberg Media Justin Smith, Semafor has gained traction through its email newsletters and events business.
The company generated $2 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization on revenue of $40 million in 2025, marking its first year of profitability.
It now plans to hire journalists in key markets such as the Arabian Gulf, launch a CEO-focused China news briefing and expand its live events business into Africa and Asia.
It currently employs 55 to 60 journalists and plans to add up to 20 more in the next few years to bolster coverage of U.S. politics, the finance industry and Silicon Valley.
The expansion comes amid shrinking trust in news and declining web traffic at large publishers as search engines such as Google prioritize AI chatbots for answering queries.
A study by consultancy firm Gallup in October found Americans’ confidence in mass media hit a new low of 28% last year.
Semafor’s email subscriptions, exceeding one million, are heavily concentrated among C-suite executives, including an invitation-only newsletter called The CEO Signal.
It currently operates without a paywall but plans to explore subscription opportunities in the next few years, CEO Justin Smith told Reuters.
“We, at this point, have a policy of not licensing our content to AI platforms, and we obviously block them from scraping our platforms as well,” he added.
(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)