• October 30, 2008

Online citizen journalism resource Helium on Wednesday announced the close of $17 million in Series A funding.

Led by Signature Capital LLC and including Northport Private Equity, the investment will be used to help the site establish additional industry partnerships, and launch new digital media products.

"The driving factor behind our investment in Helium Inc. is our belief that they've created a technology platform that will be transformative to the world of authored and published material, allowing for the lowest-cost creation of the highest quality content," said Eric Reed, General Partner at Northport Private Equity, in a statement.

Helium.com currently has a community of over 150,000 writers, who cover everything from politics to parenting advice, to pop culture, to the environment and more. The company recently announced a change to Helium's service by which "starred writers" on the site will receive upfront payments for all new articles.

The site also features The Helium Marketplace, which is a content resource used by publishers looking for content for their publications.--Gavin O'Malley