Former WildBrain CEOs Dana Landry and Michael Donovan have teamed up with veteran actor Ron Perlman (pictured) to launch a new TV and film crowdfunding platform called Watrfall. 

The platform is intended to give the people behind projects—and their investors—more ownership and a larger return on investment.  

Set to launch tomorrow, according to a countdown on the website, Watrfall is a Regulation Crowdfunding platform (commonly called a Reg CF), which means it can sell securities (like equity) in a project. This differs from a platform like Kickstarter, which is a rewards-based platform where backers typically get perks like early access to the content they help to fund. 

Watrfall plans to have a mechanism that lets audiences vote on which projects get funded and developed, according to its site. Early investors will get 5% of the platform’s operational profits that come from projects developed and funded on the site. And members will share 100% of the net profits from the platform’s first slate of five to 10 projects. 

Perlman announced the platform in a video on his Facebook page, talking about being in the industry “north of 50 years” and saying that Watrfall is where “the people who actually make the magic, who drive the profits, finally own the upside”. 

Crowdfunding had a heyday in the early 2010s, but increased competition on the platforms and a more difficult economy have somewhat diminished the model’s power as an avenue for getting series or films fully funded—especially if they’re animated. But it’s still a viable approach, and one that’s in some ways becoming more appealing, as producers struggle to figure out how to make ends meet amid shrinking broadcaster and streamer budgets. 

Since Kickstarter launched in 2009, its campaigns have raised more than US$600 million for 89,000 film and video projects. In fact, film/video is the fourth-largest category on the platform in terms of money pledged.  

Image courtesy of Watrfall.