ProPublica, a non-profit news startup, scooped up a Pulitzer Prize on Monday, its second in two years and the first ever for a series of stories that were not also published in print.

Other winners of the 95th annual Pulitzer Prizes, the most prestigious US journalism awards, were The New York Times, which won two awards, and The Los Angeles Times, which also won two.

The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal each won one along with the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Chicago Sun-Times, The Star-Ledger of New Jersey and the Denver Post.

Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein of ProPublica were honoured this year in the National Reporting category for their series of stories on how dubious practices on Wall Street contributed to the economic crisis.

The series was not published in print, unlike the Pulitzer won by ProPublica last year, which it shared with The New York Times Magazine for a story on a New Orleans hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

ProPublica, which publishes online at ProPublica.org and with partner news outlets, began operations in June 2008.

The Pulitzers, which date back to 1917, began allowing online-only publications to compete two years ago.