Portico began as the Electronic-Archiving Initiative launched by JSTOR in 2002 with a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to build upon The Foundation's seminal E-Journal Archiving Program. The charge of the Electronic-Archiving Initiative was to build a sustainable electronic-archiving model, and for more than two years, project staff worked on the development of necessary technology and engaged in extensive discussions with publishers and libraries to craft an approach that balances the needs of publishers and libraries while generating sufficient funding for the archive. In 2004, the Electronic-Archiving Initiative became a part of Ithaka. Building upon extensive input gathered from commercial and not-for-profit publishers and guidance offered from libraries at a range of small, medium and large academic libraries, an electronic archiving service, known as Portico, was developed. Portico was launched in 2005 with additional support from JSTOR, Ithaka, The Library of Congress, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

For more information, please see www.portico.org