Next Challenge for Media & Journalism 2025 (United States)

The Next Challenge for Media & Journalism is the largest startup competition open to nonprofit and for-profit media companies in the United States. The annual 16-week challenge promotes groundbreaking ideas and trailblazing startups that will reinvent journalism and media over the coming decade.

As they enter the fourth year of the Next Challenge, they’re searching for bold innovators who don’t just weather the journalism industry’s headwinds – they harness them.

They’re looking for startups that leverage cutting-edge technology and AI to transform industry obstacles into opportunities as well as pioneering new business models that will strengthen local journalism across the nation.

Funding Information

• In 2025, six prizes totaling $200,000 will be awarded to five early-stage media startups. Each division winner will receive a grant of up to $50,000 and will be eligible for an additional $25,000 Grand Prize.

Eligibility Criteria

• Base of Operations
  • The Next Challenge Competition is open to Ventures that are legally incorporated for-profit and nonprofit media-focused entities based in the United States of America and U.S. Territories. An entity is considered U.S.-based if it is incorporated in the U.S. and if the majority of employees and/or contractors live in the United States.
• Eligible Applicants
  • To be eligible, all applicants must be above the legal age of majority in their jurisdiction of legal residence as of the date of entry. Employees, officers, and directors of APMG or APMG’s agents and members of their immediate families (spouses, parents, siblings, and children, regardless of where they live) and those living in the same household as any of the foregoing are not eligible to enter or win. Employees, students, officers, and directors at partner organizations (non-APMG companies that provided financial support to the Next Challenge), and members of their immediate families are eligible to apply.
• Application
  • Entrants may apply to one and only one Next Challenge Division in a given cycle. If there are two (2) or more Entries by a single Entrant, then APMG will keep the first Entry only, as determined by the timestamps on each Entry as shown by the YouNoodle platform on which the Entry was accepted.
• Eligible Industry Focus/Divisions
  • Entrants must be focused in one of the following Divisions, defined below:
    • Future of Local Journalism Division: This award will be presented to an innovative startup serving a specific local or regional geography, filling a gap in existing local news services.
    • NewsTech Division: This award will be presented to a startup building digital tools to address the critical tech needs of journalists and local news organizations.
    • Open-Source Intelligence Division: This award will be presented to a startup leveraging publicly available data to strengthen the fact-finding, verification, and accountability capabilities of local journalists.
• Additional Eligibility Criteria
  • Only applicants that have made progress against their concept (e.g., a working prototype, minimum viable product), as of the date of Entry; generated less than one million US dollars ($1,000,000 USD) in gross revenue, including philanthropic support, in the twelve months prior to December 31, 2024, and were founded no more than five years prior to the initial application deadline will be accepted. For the sake of clarity, there is no limit to the amount of dilutive (equity or equity-like) and/or debt financing the venture has raised (collectively the “Venture”).

For more information, visit APMG.