The latest entrant in the overcrowded field of online news is a 37-year-old onetime investment banker from Japan, Yusuke Umeda, co-CEO of a financial data firm called Uzabase. What he lacks in name recognition, though, he makes up in ambition.
Last month Uzabase completed the purchase of Quartz, the business-oriented news site founded by the former owner of The Atlantic, David Bradley, for $75 million in cash and stock—a price that could rise to $110 million, depending on Quartz’s performance in coming months. In an exclusive interview with The Information, Mr. Umeda says he wants to follow up that deal with other acquisitions to help Uzabase’s news app called NewsPicks expand further around the world.
