ConsenSys, the global blockchain venture studio, made the investment committing $2.5m in capital and $2.5m in services.
The company intends to use the funds to continue to develop the platform and expand operations.
Led by founder Matthew Iles, Civil provides a blockchain-based newsmaking platform that enables a direct relationship between journalists and readers. The blockchain-based platform and its smart contracts will protect journalists against censorship and intellectual property disputes while fostering transparency across the network. Meanwhile, tools incentivizing collaborative editing and fact-checking aim to substantially limit misinformation.
In Civil’s self-governing marketplace, readers may directly sponsor newsrooms, and journalists collaboratively run their own publications. Readers may subscribe to Civil-hosted publications, and will use Civil’s cryptocurrency (CVL) tokens to sponsor individual journalists, investigations and stories, creating a new collaborative model for the gathering and dissemination of news.
An independent journalism advisory board will govern the platform overall, in order to ensure that fair, objective, professional standards are met throughout the network.
Initially the platform will focus on local, policy and investigative reporting. Civil has dedicated one million dollars to fund the First Fleet, a diverse group of top-tier journalists creating their own newsrooms and publications. Interested journalists can apply on Civil’s website.
The newsmaking platform and its CVL token sale will launch simultaneously in early 2018 with live newsrooms including Popula, an alternative news and culture publication. Journalist, editor and entrepreneur Maria Bustillos will manage the Popula newsroom, joined by Sasha Frere-Jones, Ryan Bradley, Aaron Bady and other journalists.
FinSMEs
25/10/2017