De Correspondent, an Amsterdam-based company set up to produce ‘slow journalism’, has managed to raise its €1m target from 15,000 potential new readers through crowd-funding in just eight days.

The online platform ‘aims to focus on slow journalism and background stories and will be entirely advertisement-free’. Potential readers were asked to pay €60 for a year’s subscription.

The fully-digital project was launched by Rob Wijnberg, former editor-in-chief of NRC next, and Harald Dunnink, founder of Amsterdam online creative agency Momkai.

The organisers claim this is the first time in the world that so many people have been prepared to join a new journalistic platform in its start-up phase. The target launch date is September 13.