Interactive Ventures Holding Company (IV Holdings), a leading Middle East venture capital firm based in Jordan, has announced plans to invest in US-based Content Syndicate as part of its expansion plans.

The funding will be used to support Content Syndicate’s rapid growth and development of its innovative content services platform, said a company executive.

“In its private beta alone, Content Syndicate with its disruptive business model, track record, strong customer validation and revenues, made a great fit in our investment strategy and portfolio. Very few early-stage companies have this kind of amazing traction and robust business model,” said Dr Fawaz Zu’bi, chairman of IV Holdings.

Content Syndicate’s patent-pending platform, helps publishers commission, buy, sell, syndicate content in more than 200 languages.

With no entry-level costs, coupled with its ‘pay for performance’ model, Content Syndicate helps publishers to monetize their content further, minimizing the inefficiency and generates additional revenues.

“Content Syndicate is the strategic platform that publishers, content providers and buyers are looking for globally for a competitive edge. With the tougher markets, we believe their timing, technology and highly scalable service, they are poised to be a success,” he added.

According to Romieke/Cision, a leading media intelligence provider, there are over 218,000 publishers of magazines, newspapers, trade journals, online portals, news wires and contract publishers.

Of these, more than 4,000 publishers are present in the Middle East alone, a focus market for Content Syndicate.

Outlook, a respected industry research firm, pegs the content syndication and aggregation business at $68 billion.

“IV Holdings with their impressive portfolio and focus gave us the confidence. Their experience, network and insights into the industry made them the ideal strategic investor, and partner we were seeking,” said Maddy Reddy, founder and CEO of Content Syndicate.

Content Syndicate has already successfully raised a substantial amount of early stage capital from influential angel investors in US, UK, UAE and India.

The new investment will be used towards research and development, recruitment and business expansion, Reddy remarked.

Prior to this major investment, in September 2007 Content Syndicate was a finalist at Seedcamp, a leading start-up launch pad in London. CS was selected from 260 start-ups in 42 countries.

Currently in private beta and scheduled to go live in second quarter of 2009, Content Syndicate has already signed up more than 350 blue-chip customers, besides 80 publishers from several major markets.

The company intends to extend its service support other media - audio, video and mobile content in rthe fourth quarter of 2009.-TradeArabia News Service