What Is Velocidad and Why Did We Create It?

Velocidad is a media accelerator program for digital media in Latin America. The goal of Velocidad is to promote the sustainability and growth of local journalism projects that are either digital native media or have a growth strategy focused on digital media, with quality journalism and editorial independence and that covers topics of public interest. All candidates must have high journalistic integrity and editorial independence and must cover topics that serve the public interest. The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and SembraMedia carried out an exhaustive three-stage selection process through which we choose 10 media outlets that meet the application criteria.

These 10 news organizations receive grants, plus six months of intensive mentoring and training. Depending on the results, up to six of these news projects will receive additional funding as well as strategic and tactical support for another year. The entire program will provide 18 months of acceleration.

What Does It Mean to Accelerate Media?

The main purpose of this accelerator program is to promote business models so that independent media outlets are able to generate new sources of income and achieve a level of sustainability that will allow them to continue producing journalism that makes an impact on society.

The selected media outlets receive an initial investment to strengthen their sustainability. They also receive strategic and tactical consulting services from more than 30 experts to help them develop action plans, gain access to new technologies, and help them develop more innovative and successful businesses.

How Does the Latin American Digital Media Ecosystem Benefit?

Velocidad is not the end of media acceleration—it is just the beginning. Our main focus is to strengthen the emerging journalism community in Latin America. To contribute to a more dynamic and collaborative ecosystem, we will establish strategic networks between the accelerated digital media and other independent media outlets in the region.

Thanks to Velocidad, we hope to learn valuable lessons that we will then share with the community. Velocidad is also designed to capture the attention of organizations and investors, and redirect them to the region's newest. Our goal is to inspire and promote news outlets/projects that produce quality, sustainable journalism.

Selection criteria