The first startup incubator in the country to take root within a traditional media company, Project Liberty is gearing up for a new class of startups with $345,000 in new funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Housed within Interstate General Media LLC, publisher of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily New and Philly.com, Project Liberty, which also counts DreamIt Ventures and Drexel Univeristy as partners and aims to foster newsroom innovation, will have even more to offer to its fourth class of startups. The deadline for submission of applications for its upcoming class is Aug. 30, and applicants are encouraged to present business plans for products and ideas that have earned some level of angel investment and can complement the digital needs of the media sector.
Particiapting startups get six months of rent-free space, mentoring, equipment and technical and administrative support, and the new Knight monies will go toard expanding Project Liberty's applicant pool and provide incumbents with more management assistance, counseling and connections to smaller news outlets that could benefit from innovation.
Since launching in 2011, Project Liberty alumni have raised more than $6 million in investment. DreamIt Ventures.
“Project Liberty has shown that connecting entrepreneurship with the newsroom can help create a culture of innovation and risk-taking in journalism,” says Michael Maness, Knight Foundation vice president of journalism and media innovation. “The model directly benefits communities by improving the quantity and quality of information, so that people can make educated decisions on issues they care about.”
One example is ElectNext, which created a module that was integrated into Philly.com that provides an interactive way to access information on political candidates. Another is tapCLIQ, a mobile relationship management and advertising platform meant to make ads less intrusive and more meaningful to users.