Razmig Hovaghimian’s Ripple acquires local news startup Hoodline

Just nearly three months after its launch, Rakuten entrepreneur-in-residence Razmig Hovaghimian’s hyperlocal news startup Ripple has made its first acquisition.

Via TechCrunch:

Ripple has acquired Hoodline, a deal that combines two different approaches to covering local news.

Founded by former Viki CEO Razmig Hovaghimian, Ripple launched earlier this year and taps community contributors for its coverage. Hoodline, meanwhile, has an editorial team (led by TechCrunch’s former co-editor Eric Eldon) taking advantage of local data to cover neighborhood news.

Hovaghimian described the deal as a way to strengthen Ripple’s editorial operation — he said that when it came to neighborhood news, it made more sense to acquire the Hoodline team than compete with them: “Hoodline was just too good.”

Hoodline’s existing editorial operations will be the “core” of the combined company, but it will be complemented by Ripple’s brand of community reporting where citizens themselves report about what’s happening in their areas, Ripple tells Tech in Asia. Video will also now play a critical role.

Hoodline though will continue as a separate website.

Eric Eldon stays on as editor-in-chief of the combined company and Chikai Ohazama, founder of Muxventures and previously a product manager at Google (leading Google Earth and Google Maps, and creating the early products of Niantic), joins as an adviser.

Hoodline and Ripple are both based in San Francisco, but Ripple also has new streams in New York, London, Cairo, and Bangkok.

Razmig tells us they will expand to Singapore, Jakarta, and Manila in Southeast Asia and two cities in China later this year. “We’re working with Coconuts media on an in-depth partnership for those markets, mainly video.”

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

See: After selling Viki to Rakuten, Razmig Hovaghimian launches a new startup