AScribe
In The News

AScribe Hatches

by Daniel S. Levine

AScribe -- The Public Interest Newswire is coming out of its shell.

The Oakland-based startup is leaving city's technology incubator to set up shop in Rockridge. The move coincides with the relocation of the incubator to the Rotunda Building from the old Bruner's Furniture building on Broadway.

The company, co-founded by former San Jose Mercury News reporter Ron Wolf and former Haas School of Business public affairs director David Irons, provides a low-cost alternative to PRNewswire and BusinessWire for nonprofit organizations looking for electronic distribution of press releases. The company offers savings of as much as 90 percent over the major wire systems.

"People hear about AScribe, and go to the wire on our site and see the quality of the news there and the quality of our customers, the quality of the organizations sending ... they want to be a part of that."

AScribe distributes its releases over a variety of channels including the Associated Press, Dow Jones Interactive, Lexis-Nexus, iSyndicate, ScreamingMedia, Comtex and via its own web site, http://www.ascribe.org. Among AScribe's clients are the UC system, most major medical centers in the country, two dozen top foundations and a mix of innovative public policy nonprofits.

The company, which has relied on less than $1 million in angel funding to date, expects to raise some additional financing here, but the former ink-stained wretches are hopeful they will soon become black ink-stained wretches.