Project Liberty: Knight Foundation awards $345k for incubator expansion

After its third class wraps up, the Project Liberty Digital Incubator will return, thanks to a $345,000 grant from the Knight Foundation.

The incubator, housed at the Market East headquarters of Interstate General Media, the parent company of the the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com, is now accepting applications from startups.

There had been some question as to what was next for the media incubator, which rebounded somewhat after a shaky start in connecting the companies it incubated with its media business.

Download an application by clicking on this link. Applications are due Aug. 30.

The Knight Foundation grant is a nearly $100,000 increase of the initial $250,000 grant that the Project Liberty partners received in 2011 to run three classes of the incubator. Project Liberty partners include Interstate General Media, Benjamin Franklin Technology Partners, DreamIt Ventures and Drexel University.

It’s not clear yet what the increase in funding will bring, whether it’s more cycles of the incubator or support for more startups — the first Project Liberty iteration supported eight startups throughout three cycles.

Representatives from Interstate General Media and Project Liberty did not respond to a request for comment as of press time.