News.com reports that Topix.net has received an additional $15 million from the newspaper media companies that invested in it back in 2005. The ownership of Topix.net by news publishers is now Gannett 33.7%, Tribune 33.7% and McClatchy 11.9% for a total of 79.3%.
Topix, founded in 2002, aggregates news and categorizes it into topics. Earlier this year, the company added the ability for readers to comment on articles. Topix provides automated related links on some of the Web sites of newspapers owned by the investors and is adding reader comment capabilities to their sites as well.
Chris Tolles, vice president of sales and marketing at Topix, said the company would spend the funding on hiring and marketing. Company executives want to double the 25-person staff over the next year, he said. "For us to grow, we needed the money."
Topix.net also has a useful blog search. Blogs are automatically searched in the results but users can select the option to have only blogs searched. Topix.net also has a section showing the top stories in the blogosphere. The news of the $15 million investment was also blogged on the Topix.net weblog.
News.com 
