Google Innovation Fund or Digital News Initiative (DNI) has allocated 7,8 million euros to 32 digital journalism projects in Portugal in the accumulated of the six financing rounds, over the last five years.

Portugal is the sixth country that received the most funding from Google Innovation Fund, after Germany (€21,5 million), France (20,1 million), Spain (12,1 million), Italy (11,5 million) and the United Kingdom (14,9 million), according to the DNI report.

Almost half of the projects (49%) presented by Portugal were for the exploitation of new technologies, 24% for combating misinformation, 15% for the dissemination of local stories and 12% for boosting digital revenues.

“In the global fund of 150 million euros, we have financed 662 projects in 30 countries across Europe,” told Madhav Chinnappa, director of development for the Google news ecosystem.

“I think all the projects are fantastic,” he said, highlighting, in the Portuguese case, two, including that of the online newspaper Observador, with its online radio service, which received funding of 390 thousand euros.

In overall terms, more than a quarter (27.2%) of the projects supported by DNI went to regional and national publishers, and 14.5% to news startups.

Overall, the Google Innovation Fund supported projects addressing four main industry challenges: increasing digital revenues (12%), telling local stories (15%), combating misinformation (21%) and exploring new technologies (52%).

According to the head of Google, support for the media ecosystem will continue, through the various tools at the company’s disposal.

“We have a long-term commitment, we are an ecosystem company and we thrive when the ecosystems in which we operate prosper,” he said.

Source : JORNAL ECONÓMICO, MACAU BUSINESS