Ex-WSJ R&D chief, automation editor start computational journalism company with $1.5M funding

Francesco Marconi, who led artificial intelligence efforts at the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, announced Thursday in a Medium post the launch of new computational journalism company Applied XL.

Erin Riglin, who previously served as the Journal’s first automation editor, is the company’s chief technology officer.

According to TechCrunch, the news automation startup received $1.5 million in seed funding from Tuesday Capital, a venture capital firm that was an early investor in tech companies such as Airbnb and Uber, and aims to “combine precision of journalism with the scale of technology platforms,” said Marconi.

Applied XL develops editorial algorithms to source newsworthy information from raw data, generating industry specific alerts and insights for professional users.

The new company is staffed by computational journalists who develop custom algorithms rooted in editorial principles with editors deciding what weights and parameters to apply to the AI news system.