NewsCred's new office.

"I’m in a cavernous conference room. So if I sound like God, it’s because that's what my voice actually sounds like," NewsCred founder Shafqat Islam told Betabeat over the phone from the company's new Flatiron headquarters last week.

Mr. Islam's company, which licenses and distributes content to publishers (like Conde Nast, Business Insider, Forbes, and the Chicago Tribune) and brands (like Pepsi and Johnson & Johnson), was one of the inaugural startups to have a permanent home in General Assembly, along with now familiar names from Startupland, like SeatGeek, Yipit, and Art.sy. "We sat right next to Fashism, they used to do fashion shoots in the office right next to us," he said.

Last fall, NewsCred doubled its office space after graduating from GA, and then recently tripled space again to accomodate its growth spurt, but after the company's most recent development, they may soon be packing up again. Yesterday, NewsCred announced the acquisition of Daylife, a pioneer in the same space that focuses on publishing tools like photo galleries, polls, and timelines--a nice complement to NewsCred's emphasis on licensed content.

To find examples of NewsCred's work for publishers, you can check out the New York Daily News' "Desi" vertical, targeted to the lucrative and underserved demographic of South Asian readers. For a monthly fee, NewsCred packages the content and designed, built, and hosts that section for the paper, splitting revenue with providers. The company uses licensed content from Indian newspapers, cricket content from the Telegraph and the Guardian, and political articles on India-U.S. relations from newswires.

In fact, NewsCred found itself so well-positioned in the growing market for content partly because of a pivot towards licensing. The company used to "aggregate RSS feeds" for publishers and brands seeking content, but, two years ago Mr. Islam said, "We realized very quickly that headlines and excerpts don't create a tremednous amount of value. Premium content wins longterm and we were fortunate that we pivoted and did all of that licensing." NewsCred currently licenses from 1,000 different sources. "We have four people who  just do licensing all day, it’s a very painful experience," he admitted.

For its work with brands, check out Pepsi.com, powered by NewsCred, which curates articles on music, pop culture, and entertainment, said Mr. Islam, pointing to a Los Angeles Times article on dub step, which we saw on the top left of the site.

"When we started we thought most of our customers would be news publishers, but then the entire movement of brands becoming publishers really propelled the company forward and accelerated growth," he said.

The biggest competition, he said, now comes from brands wanting to write the content themselves or getting custom content. For the latter, NewsCred sometimes partners with Contently, another New York City startup, which he said is a nice mix with NewsCreds' "real journalism from high quality publications. It’s credible, it adds authenticity."

"If you asked me five years ago, I would have said you’re absolutely crazy," Mr. Islam remarked of the acquisition, which gives NewsCred better access to Daylife clients like The History Channel, GE, and ESPN. "When we stared they were huge and we used to think, 'One day we’re gonna be as big as Daylife!'"

He stressed that this was not an acqui-hire. NewsCred will be using Daylife's technology like its Smart Gallery tool ("Everyone knows slideshows work really well on the web!" he said.) But AllThingsD wasn't so sure, pointing out that all eight of Daylife's employees are joining NewsCred's team of 65 employees.

NewsCred would not disclose the price of the acquisition. "We’re still really well capitalized," Mr. Islam said. Last November, the company raised a $4 million Series A round led by First Mark, along with with Lerer Ventures, AOL Ventures and Advancit Capital.

Mr. Islam likened NewsCred--as well as his fellow General Assembly alums--to a new class of companies for New York's tech scene. "It's kind of what I consider the next generation of NYC startups," he said. "First generation is Etsy and Foursquare. We're part of what's next."

Nice view, if you can get it.

Meme-tastic! (Photo: Politicker)

If your week was as hellish hectic as ours, you must be in need of a stiff drink. Pour yourself a cocktail and get comfy: here comes this week's rumor roundup.

Step Away from the Crackberry! In case you missed all the Instagrams, Mayor Bloomberg performed some titillating acts of Startup Theatre on the stage at Gracie Mansion Tuesday night. The crème of tech society, including MakerBot's Bre Pettis, General Assembly's Adam Brimer, Yipit founder Vinny Vacanti, Google trends & insights editor Caroline McCarthy, Sailthru's Aubrey Sabala, chief digital officer Rachel Sterne Haot and her husband, LiveStream founder Max Haot, gathered on the lawn for canapés and cocktails to celebrate NYC Connects 2012.

To enhance his usual Silicon Alley cheerleading, Mr. Bloomberg opted for props on the podium, like an array of Warby Parker sunglasses and a Seamless delivery guy, who shlepped takeout up on stage. The spotlight was enough to lure Seamless CEO Jonathan Zabusky out of Twitter hiding. Besides one of the guests complaining about a scripted "Hello world" joke that fell short, everyone seemed to eat up the promotional opportunities.

While Mr. Bloomberg and his girlfriend Diana Taylor eagerly examined the new MakerBot Replicator 2 on display, however, another executive was also milling about: Google chairman Eric Schmidt, pecking at his BlackBerry rather than tapping at an Android device. Mr. Schmidt! Haven't you been warned about this before?

Snoop No More? Earlier this week, we wondered how the $15 million Andreessen Horowitz just ploughed into Rap Genius would affect the startup's street cred. Marc Andreessen, you see, also happens to have donated (a small fraction) of his billions to Mitt Romney--along with fellow Republicans like race-baiting Scott Brown and the Tea Party's only hope for the White House, Paul Ryan. And if our Yeezy history lessons and Nikki Minaj's recent brush with satire have taught us anything, it's that rappers and Mitt don't mix.

Signs of a potential rift in-the-making surfaced via Snoop Dog's Instagram today when he republished Twitter personality @DragonflyJonez's reasons not to vote for Mitt. Good thing for the site's founders--who appear to have some habits in common with Snoop--that the rapper has a verified account on Rap Genius, but hasn't actually contributed anything.

Weissman, Party of One After a long week of product launches, Reddit k-holes, and funding news, there is nothing Betabeat likes so much as a 90s Netflix marathon. It looks like Union Square Ventures partner Andy Weissman had the same idea:

Thinking about dipping into Party of Five this weekend, see if it holds up after all these years

— Andrew Weissman (@aweissman) October 5, 2012

Dr. Jack Shephard before he ever crashed into that damn island? Jennifer Love Hewitt before she was relegated to a John Mayer punchline? We're getting nostalgic already.

Here Comes Baby Ex-Googler and newly minted Yodeler Marissa Mayer gave birth to a baby boy on Sunday, September 30th. "Baby boy Bogue born last night. Mom (@marissamayer) and baby are doing great--we couldn't be more excited!" tweeted her husband Zachary Bogue. But it turns out the baby doesn't have a name, and instead the Mayer/Brogue couple is doing what any young techie couple would: they're crowdsourcing for names.

According to an email sent out by the couple, published by Forbes:

Hi All -

Zack and I welcomed BBB (Baby Boy Bogue) into our family last night.

He arrived exactly one week ahead of schedule at 22:22 p.m. on 9/30/12, weighing 8 lbs 14 oz and is 21″ tall.  He is now officially BBBB – Big Baby Boy Bogue!  We are all very happy and excited.  Name TBD – suggestions welcome!

With love and happiness,

Marissa & Zack

We're guessing "Larry" is completely out of the question.

Stalking 2.0 When Vox Media director of marketing Callie Schweitzer asked Onswipe cofounder Jason Baptiste if his stalker was still around, our ears immediately perked up. Turns out a stranger had been checking into Mr. Baptiste's apartment and Onswipe HQ on Foursquare and it was starting to get creepy. Luckily, Mr. Baptiste assured us it was "nothing serious." Besides, Foursquare stalkers are so 2010. The real people to worry about are the creeps who like every single one of your pictures on Instagram. Photos of artisanal meals aren't that inspiring.

Media Mogul Melee BuzzFeed cofounder Jonah Peretti and Gawker publisher Nick Denton took the kid gloves off this week and engaged in a rather amusing sparring session on Twitter. When Mr. Peretti disingenuously congratulated Mr. Denton on Gawker landing at #101 on Business Insider's Digital 100 List, Mr. Denton replied with his trademark brand of British-tinged snark: "We've always been asked: in your quest for traffic, what would you not do? Buzzfeed has provided the answer. Thanks, @peretti"

Somebody make some popcorn.

Bizzy Dev It looks like one of Betabeat's "poachables" has gone and gotten herself poached! On her Tumblr, Andrea Hong, a senior manager of business development at AOL, announced that she'll be joining NewsCred, a New York City startup that wants to reinvent "how and where content is sourced, distributed, published, and paid for," as the company's director of content. We hope she enjoys NewsCred's snazzy new office!

Beef by the Book Just this week we got an official update on the progress of Sheryl Sandberg's work-in-progress Lean In, which is proceeding apace on its path toward becoming the women-in-tech equivalent of Bossypants. 

But it seems Ms. Sandberg may have a rival in the long-form arena. Intellectual gadfly Evgeny Morozov (whom we last saw stirring the pot with the audacious suggestion that the Internet isn't always a wondrous freedom-granting elixer, as well as trash-talking TED) is finishing up his own tome, and just recently he hinted arcanely that Facebook's COO might be in for a very academic diss: 

Am I going a bit overboard in this new book using Bernard Williams to bash Sheryl Sandberg? Well, yes. But at least it's FUN.

— Evgeny Morozov (@evgenymorozov) September 30, 2012

We simply can't wait to learn how the British moralist relates to Ms. Sandberg, and we long for the arrival of the inevitable New York Review of Books essay hashing all this out.

As always: Overheard a juicy tidbit about impending departures or imminent acquisitions? Dying to dish about startup blunders or frothy financing? Holler at your girls: tips@betabeat.com

Managing Director Lawrence Lenihan (via firstmarkcap.com)

Guess nobody polled FirstMark Capital for that recent survey about pessimism around the venture capital market for 2012. While their peers report dwindling faith in their ability to raise funds to invest, FirstMark reported yesterday that it had closed an oversubscribed $225 million early-stage fund.

Perhaps that's why the New York-based venture capital firm opted for a subtle announcement: a blog post that, by the looks of it, has only been picked up by the New York Post and the Dow Jones Wire.

The new fund, called FirstMark V, is larger than the firm's previous $200 million fund, which boasted a big exit with Riot Games, sold to the Chinese firm Tencent this year for $400 million. Judging by some of the other promising companies in the fund like SecondMarket and Knewton, there's likely to be more good news of the way for FirstMark.

Pinterest, for example, which is hot on Tumblr's heels and already cozy with brands like Nordstrom and the Travel Channel, recently closed a $25 million round from Andreessen Horowitz at a $200 million valuation. ($200 million valuations for early stage companies seem to be something of an Andreessen Horowitz specialty.)

According to DowJones:

"The new fund will operate under the same investment thesis--it will be the first money into companies working on the application layer of the Internet, and usually companies with a New York connection. The fund will be managed by the same team, which consists of four managing directors and five venture partners."

FirstMark V has already made five investments: Greenphire (e-payments), LollyWollyDoodle (personalized kids clothing), NewsCred (a premium newswire), Dashlane (an app that improves speed and security online) and Meteor.

In the fund announcement, FirstMark waived its Silicon Alley flag high:

"We will also continue our tireless support of the NYC ecosystem. We think it's one of the best places in the world to build a company and getting stronger each day due to the efforts of many of you. This year, we co-chaired the Ingenuity conference to showcase the best companies in NYC, successfully helped launch the NYC Turing Fellows to bring more engineers to the City, taught and encouraged NYU undergrads to become entrepreneurs and join startups, invested in and mentored at TechStars, spoke and spent time at General Assembly, sponsored numerous conferences and events, and tried to make a real impact in building a vibrant local community. We will continue the mission!"