(Photo: Circa blog)

In recent months, LOLcat emperor and  Bravo TV star Ben Huh has systematically leaked handfuls of details about his news startup, Circa, to the press. Back in April, Circa raised $750,000 from a slew of investors (many of whom were named David). In May, Nieman Lab caught up with Mr. Huh at ROFLCON, where he provided buzzword-laden answers and metaphors involving newspapers and teenagers to their questions about the startup. But today, Mr. Huh's efforts have finally solidified into a cohesive company: Circa is an iPhone app that wants to change the way readers consume news.

Circa isn't just a news aggregator. It employs teams of editors who curate and synthesize news stories into digestible bites, optimized for reading on mobile devices. The point is to write stories that are designed exclusively for mobile, instead of repackaging stories released on other platforms and trying to fit them into a mobile setting.

According to the Circa blog:

Instead of articles, Circa presents news as a collection of details about a story: the facts, stats, quotes, pictures, maps, and more. These are the full stories, not summaries; summaries tend to compress stories and therefore lose details. Instead, each story on Circa has the same details you’d find in traditional articles, but broken down into individual chunks of information that are much easier to consume. It’s the facts, without the fluff.

The details, or points, are presented in an interface that works a little like the flash cards like we used in school to learn and retain new information. Flash cards improve  comprehension, retention, as well as speed of learning. Each point within a Circa story is presented on its own “card,” so it’s easy to swipe through and read a whole story in less than a minute.

Unlike a leisurely tablet reading experience where beautifully templated longform stories are embraced and pored over, reading on a mobile device is all about the quick and dirty. Circa aims to provide those digestible factoids for users to quickly absorb on-the-go. (It kind of reminds us of The Skimm, but not in a newsletter format.) Users can also follow stories and topics, and the Circa app will alert them when there are any updates.

“Once you start to think of news as happening in these ‘atomic units,’ rather than as things that need to be wrapped up and shipped in an article, you can start to do different and unique things such as let people 'follow' a story, provide different context based on what a reader has consumed before, bridge from one point to a story that provides background, and so on," Circa's editor in chief, David Cohn, told GigaOm.

Because the team of journalists tasked with writing the content for Circa is basically synthesizing other publications' reporting into a simple news for dummies flashcard, there's bound to be some grumbling about sourcing. Circa argues that proper sourcing is close to its heart, however. "We know that truth and trust are paramount in news, and that’s why we work hard to provide the source to every single point that we write within a story," reads the blog post.

No word yet on how adorable cat pictures will factor into the Circa newsgathering process.

Mr. Picón.

Pedro Torres Picón is an angel investor of the new breed: Young, hip, and handy with an Instagram, it's suddenly clear how he managed to make his way into a slew of impressive investments despite moving to New York two years ago without knowing a soul. Mr. Picón has an easy manner, a sweet smile and a certain trustworthiness about him; and, in this town, being personable is most of the battle.

It doesn't hurt that he's sharp.

The citizens of Quotidian Labs, who reside on an extremely pleasant, sunny 8th floor on W. 21st, were working quietly on a recent afternoon when Betabeat stopped by to finally meet Mr. Picón after a series of attempted appointments dating back to February. The building also houses Next New Networks, acquired by YouTube, and Quotidian's floor came pre-decorated by Outside.in, which was bought by AOL. "This is a good building for acquisitions," Mr. Picón said. And with stylish chairs and a glass-walled conference room, all he had to do was cover the walls with art from Artsicle, a Quotidian portfolio company, and chalk a Quotidian logo in the entryway.

Born in Caracas, Mr. Picón wrote his first business plan as a teenager: Quotidian Technologies, an outdoor advertising network. The company was not a success, but Mr. Picón still likes the name. He's been an angel investor in Latin America and Miami for eight years, managing his family's wealth through Quotidian Ventures.

Impressed by a Betaworks brown bag lunch featuring Gary Vaynerchuk and Andy Weissman, he decided to start a fund in New York. He'd been angel investing in Latin America and made a few contacts in Silicon Valley, but in New York he was starting from scratch.

Normally press-shy, Mr. Picón seems to have decided that it's time to come out from backstage. He recalled a chance meeting when he first got to New York and ran into trouble getting an Uber cab after a conference. He was standing in a corner, fuming, when out walked Ron Conway. Amazingly, the white-haired tech mogul stopped and spoke to him. "I was sort of starstruck," Mr. Picón said. "We ended up sharing a cab for 20 minutes in traffic." He told Mr. Conway that he wanted to start an angel fund that would grow into a "fund, fund."

Mr. Conway's advice: "You want to be an investor? Just invest. Find companies you like, and invest in them."

Mr. Picón, whose Macbook bears a sticker with a Yoda quote: "Do or do not. There is no try," of course took the tip. He started making small investments, and a lot of them. He started attending tech events, sourcing deals through the people he met and trusted, and honing his investment philosophy. "We're usually the earliest money in," he said. "Sometimes even pre-product." Quotidian has a broad focus, but prefers companies that solve a "real, specific problem." "We would have missed Twitter, we would have missed Facebook," he said, contrasting market-less companies with his investment FieldLens, a startup that makes software for construction projects with the motto "it's just an app that solves real problems." He's heavy on diversification: Quotidian is a limited partner in several funds, all outside of New York.

Quotidian has invested in 34 companies, including several TechStars NYC startups and Circa, Ben Huh's stealth startup. Quotidian has already had two exits, Mr. Picón said, and "no flops yet! (fingers crossed)," as he wrote in an email.

"I've definitely kept a low profile," he said. But now equipped with a sizable portfolio, a blog, and a coworking space with six startups, Quotidian is establishing a name for itself. In May, Mr. Picón decided to blow his entire sponsorship budget on a booth for Quotidian and its portfolio companies at TechCrunch Disrupt, and even hired chalk artists and a photobooth. He's learning to code (check), still has his membership at General Assembly (check), subscribes to Gary's Guide and attends New York Tech Meetup (check, check) and two weeks ago, hired a hacker in residence (check).

The TechCrunch exposure backfired in some ways, he said, because he prefers to learn about deals from his own network. (Warning: Getting in touch with him by email can be a nightmare, and he might be five minutes late for your appointment, "which I do sometimes," he admitted.)

After his initial burst of activity, Mr. Picón, is planning to hire two venture partners and a part-time in-house counsel. Aditya Mukerjee, the just-hired hacker, a recent computer science grad, will be in an analyst role but is fully technical. "I wanted him to be as different from my perspective as possible to make the conversation more interesting," Mr. Picón said.

Mr. Huh (flickr.com/yodelanecdotal)

Ben Huh, the genius behind Icanhascheezburger who has delivered cute and crazy cat pictures to the masses for years, is working on a new startup called Circa that wants to "reimagine the way you consume news." Today, TechCrunch reports that Circa has raised $750,000 from a slew of A-list investors, including a few notable New York techies.

According to Techcrunch:

Their startup Circa, which boasts a newsworthy list of advisors like former Digg CEO Jay Adelson, has just raised 750K in seed funding from eonCapital, Quotidian Ventures, Techstars’ David Cohen and David Tisch, Tumblr’s David Karp, Eric Norlin, Manesh Arora, Pedro Torres-Picon, Rick Webb, Scott Belsky and Soraya Darabi.

Mr. Huh has mostly remained mum on the details of what Circa actually is. The company's about page is sparse and generalized: "Our vision is to create the best possible news experience by optimizing for truths, encouraging diversity, and empowering readers." Okay...sounds good?

Hey, Mr. Huh: we can haz more info about Circa, plz?