August seems to be “funding announcement month” so after Empire Avenue and Barcode Hero, here comes a 3rd new investment: Summify is a social news reader that addresses the information overflow we all are experiencing with the explosion of social media. What that exactly means is best described by the Summify team on their blog:

People are increasingly getting their news from the social networks they’re part of (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), but this is rapidly getting overwhelming. If you’re connected with a few hundred people and companies, it’s hard to stay on top of the news they share. There’s currently no way to get the important stuff without going through all your news.

Summify gives you a river of news in a way that you can consume it in minutes, rather than hours. The important stuff bubbles up at the top so, however much time you have at your disposal, you always know you’re reading the important stuff first.

It’s a HTML5 web app (only modern browsers supported, sorry!). It aggregates all your incoming news from your Twitter and Google Reader account (Facebook and Google Buzz support on the way!). It then curates your news feed by using the social reactions gathered from your networks. The important news makes it to the Top News section. There’s also a Recent News section that allows you to see everything in chronological order.

Summify is the first Bootup Labs company I have invested in. I got to know the team after spending more time over at BootUp and was immediately impressed by their technical strength – Mircea and Cristian are probably the best “strong engineers & early-stage entrepreneurs combo” I have ever come across in Vancouver so I am extremely excited to working with them to build a great company!

The product is still in private beta but you can get an invite code by sending me an email (bwertz [at]wmediaventures [dot] com – looking forward to getting your feed-back!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Summify pivots into Social New Reader (techvibes.com)
• Social News-Reader Summify Raises Funds to Solve Information Overload (nytimes.com)
• Social news-reader Summify raises funds to solve information overload (venturebeat.com)
• Vancouver’s Summify lands seed round from W Media Ventures (techvibes.com)