Portal A is dedicating a “Moonshots” fund to finance creators’ indie projects

Portal A is committing $500,000 in funding to five indie content projects this year through its Moonshots program.

Moonshots first launched in 2018 as a way for Portal A to find, fund, and produce innovative projects anchored by digital-native talent. The program’s first round of projects included pilots and social video experiments from creators including Alexis G. Zall and Mike Diva.

Producing Zall’s comedy/horror YouTube series Maybe Today, Satan as part of Moonshots “opened the door for Portal A at forward-thinking short-form platforms like Snap Originals,” Portal A tells Tubefilter.

First-round projects also included American Pathogen, a 30-minute documentary about the Trump administration’s response to COVID; The Adventures of Nunchuk Larry, an “off-the-wall action film” made in partnership with longtime YouTube creators The Gregory Brothers; and Robu, an award-winning short film directed by Portal A’s co-founder Kai Hasson.

Now, Portal A (which is backed by Wheelhouse) is unveiling what it calls the “second iteration” of Moonshots. Moving forward, the program will be led by Portal A’s director of original projects Jacob Motz.

“The one constant at this company is that we always bet on ourselves and invest in projects that push the boundaries of what audiences expect,” Motz said in a statement. “We’re fired up to open the doors to the creative and talent community to create work that is fresh and different and even a little uncomfortable.”

Portal A will divvy up $500,000 worth of funding between five projects from “emerging talent,” it says. It’s considering recipients “in a variety of genres—from original social series to short films to live content and more—with the through-line being social video concepts that are innovative in format and have a differentiated creative point of view.”

“With Moonshots, we’re unshackling ourselves from constraints and lifting up voices we believe in,” Brittani Kagan, Portal A’s head of talent partnerships, said in a statement. “This is a big opportunity for our team to tap into our community’s creativity to inspire what’s next.”

Portal A says recipient projects will be announced throughout this year, but one project has already been selected: “a documentary about the new phenomenon of psychedelic family therapy.” Called Family Trip, the project is from filmmaker Sean Dunne, who intends to produce both a short film and a documentary series.

Creators who would like their projects considered for Moonshots can reach out to Portal A moonshots@portal-a.com.