The Canada Media Fund announced today a new pilot program designed to offer existing Experimental Stream funded projects with increased access to mentorship, markets, and capital. The Accelerator Partnership Pilot Program (A3P), with a budget of $360K, will support digital media projects that have previously received Experimental Stream funding for development or production by enabling their producers to enroll in acceleration programs. The A3P guidelines can be reviewed by clicking here.
“The CMF is building links with the investment sector, incubators and accelerators to provide CMF-funded projects with access to additional capital and expertise. We look forward to having many eligible producers seize this opportunity and take part in the pilot program” says Valerie Creighton, President and CEO. “We will closely monitor the results of this new initiative which will in turn provide information to help shape our future policies and programs.”
The accelerators
A business accelerator, also called a seed accelerator, is an organization that selects businesses or teams at the early stages of their development, or that are looking to refine their project and accelerate their market roll-out and their company’s growth. Accelerators provide these companies with funding, mentorship and training.
For this pilot initiative, the CMF selected a total of eight Canadian accelerators based on their ability to work with the variety of digital media projects and diversity of producers supported by the CMF across the country. The following accelerators have been selected to participate in this pilot program: Execution Labs (Montreal); FounderFuel (Montreal); GrowLab (Vancouver); HYPERDRIVE (Waterloo Region); ideaBOOST (Toronto); Inno-Centre (Montreal); INcubes (Toronto); Ryerson Futures and Digital Media Zone (Toronto).
The application process
Producers who meet all program requirements are invited to express their interest in being part of the A3P by using the opt-in form available here.
The CMF will then connect interested candidates to the partnering accelerators. Applicants will be invited to submit their applications directly to the accelerators to undergo their standard selection process. If selected by one of the acceleration partners, A3P applicants will be entitled to a non-refundable contribution of $30,000 from the CMF. As such, the CMF will be able to support (12) companies to enroll in one of the eight acceleration programs offered.