Google, the internet subsidiary of conglomerate Alphabet, has announced it has invested the first €27m ($29m) from its €150m Digital News Initiative Innovation Fund to 128 companies across 23 European markets.
The fund was launched in October 2015 with news organisations such as newspapers Financial Times, La Stampa and Die Zeit as founding partners. It is part of Google’s Digital News Initiative, which currently counts more than 160 partners, and funds startups working on technologies for the news industry.
The fund offers up to €50,000 to very early-stage projects, up to €300,000 to cover a maximum of 70% of the funding for medium-sized projects and up to €1m to cover up to 70% of funding for large projects, though bigger sums may be awarded to collaborative initiatives.
Selected startups include ElDiario.es, a Spain-based crowdfunding platform for readers to provide money for a specific story, and Spectrm, a Germany-based artificial intelligence engine that helps publishers send content directly to individual readers through instant messaging apps.
Google plans to open another call for applications in summer this year.