Financing for Watson in place
The new news portal Watson will definitely be launched in the first quarter of 2014, financed by AZ Medien and publisher Peter Wanner.
Since May 2013, a 15-member team of journalists, designers, marketing specialists and IT developers at the Zurich media startup Fixxpunkt has been designing the new news portal Watson. It is being financed by AZ Medien and BT Holding, according to an announcement on Sunday. Their boards of directors decided last week to take over the majority of shares in Fixxpunkt. A minority will remain with the development team. Peter Wanner, publisher and Chairman of the Board of AZ Medien and BT Holding, has already been involved in the project over the past months. His involvement will now put Watson on a financially sustainable footing, according to the statement.
The Watson team
Most of the Fixxpunkt employees who are already permanent employees previously worked at 20 Minuten Online for several years. Hansi Voigt, founder and Managing Director of Fixxpunkt, was Editor-in-Chief of the Tamedia portal until December 2012, while the two members of the Executive Board, Steven Goodman and Franz Ermel, were Head of Corporate Development and Deputy Editor-in-Chief respectively.
