Digital media startup Semafor announced on Wednesday that it has completed a $30 million funding round. Following its first profitable year, the company's post-money valuation has reached $330 million.

This funding round saw continued investment from existing backers, while also attracting new investors including the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (PSP), Belgian entrepreneur Thomas Leysen, and the K Group.

Amidst intense competition in the news industry and a continued decline in public trust in media, Semafor plans to utilize the newly injected capital to advance its global expansion strategy and strengthen its live news events business.

A study released by polling organization Gallup in October last year revealed that Americans' trust in mass media has fallen to a historic low of 28%, down from 31% in 2024.

Simultaneously, major publishers are facing pressure from declining traffic from search engines, as users increasingly prefer to rely on AI chatbots to obtain conversational information services.

In contrast, Semafor has managed to achieve profitability against the trend: the company disclosed that its 2025 revenue reached $40 million, with an EBITDA of $2 million, marking its first profitable year since inception.

Currently, Semafor's email subscription user base has surpassed 1 million, with its audience highly concentrated among corporate executives. The company has also launched an invitation-only newsletter titled "The CEO Signal."

Semafor stated it plans to expand its team of reporters in core coverage areas, with a focus on Washington political news, Wall Street financial developments, Silicon Valley tech news, as well as politics, global business, finance, and economics.

Semafor was officially founded in 2022, initially securing $25 million in startup capital from investors including several media industry executives and the later-disgraced cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried. In 2023, the company completed another $19 million funding round, with a portion of the funds used to repurchase approximately $10 million worth of original shares held by Bankman-Fried.