Matter, the new startup accelerator for media ventures launched by KQED, the Knight Foundation and PRX last year, today is announcing the seven startups that have been selected to participate in its second class.
Fusing public media values with the methods and mindsets of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, Matter invests in startups that show high potential to create ventures that have a meaningful, positive impact on society while pursuing a sustainable, scalable, profitable business model.
Reflecting the many ways audiences consume, participate in, and create media, the seven media startups selected to participate in Matter’s second class, dubbed Matter Two, are:
- Connu – Connu helps emerging writers find, connect with, and monetize audiences through publishing the best new short stories.
- Contextly – Contextly enables publications of all sizes to be both informative and viable in the age of drive-by readers by marrying editorial wisdom to the power of algorithms.
- The Creative Action Network – The Creative Action Network (CAN) is a marketplace for artists, causes, and supporters to harness their talents for good by creating, buying, and sharing original, crowdsourced creative content and merchandise.
- Formidable – Formidable Corp. bursts the filter bubble to help connect you to people outside of your social circle.
- Getcast – Getcast empowers creative professionals to take control of their careers by connecting them through a platform that helps them showcase their work, hone their craft, and collaborate on a global scale.
- Hacklog – Hacklog empowers individual journalists to be more relevant to their audiences, impactful with their stories, and in charge of their careers by providing honest analytics.
- Woop.ie – Woopie (Write Only Once, Publish It Everywhere) empowers writers and publishers to easily reach their audiences on all devices and platforms through a digital content publishing tool focused on responsive design.
The four-month program, which begins this week, will culminate with a demo day in February for a select group of investors, media executives, mentors, and members of the Matter community. The teams each receive a $50,000 investment and will work side-by-side in the Matter co-working space in San Francisco’s tech-friendly SoMa district. The program will kick off with an intensive boot camp, followed by a regular series of design reviews, mentoring sessions, and educational workshops.
The inaugural class, Matter One, culminated with a Demo Day in San Francisco in June 2013. Since then, half the teams have closed additional investments, and two have received acquisition offers. For more on Matter One, see a piece recently published by The Knight Foundation – “Lessons that Matter: Six Takeaways from the Media Accelerator’s First Class of Startups.”