Early years as VidAngel Angel Studios was originally founded as VidAngel in 2014 by
Latter-Day Saint family members Neal Harmon, Jeffrey Harmon, Daniel Harmon, Jordan Harmon, and Benton Crane. According to Neal Harmon, the brothers wanted to be able to show any movie to their children without worrying about explicit material. VidAngel provided a filtering service that allowed viewers to skip or mute scenes they did not want to watch from streamed movies and TV shows, by allowing viewers to set customized filters on graphic violence, nudity, and profanity. In 2016, VidAngel was sued by several major Hollywood studios for copyright violations, accusing the service of streaming unlicensed content that was not created by VidAngel. VidAngel fought the lawsuit for several years, asserting its method was legal under the Family Movie Act of 2005, and then eventually reached a settlement in 2020. As a result of the lawsuit, the Harmon brothers decided to sell the filtering service business and instead focus on producing original content through equity
crowdfunding. The previous VidAngel service was sold to VidAngel Entertainment, and the company was rebranded as Angel Studios in 2021.
Equity crowdfunding In December 2016, VidAngel was undergoing a lawsuit. To raise money for operations and lawsuit costs, the company conducted a Regulation A+ securities offering with a goal of $5 million in investment. It met its goal after 28 hours and had crowdfunded over $10 million after five days. In 2017, the company conducted another Regulation A+ securities offering to crowdfund Season 1 of
The Chosen. Neal Harmon and Jeff Harmon worked together with
Dallas Jenkins and
Derral Eves to produce and stream a multi-season television series about the life of Jesus and his disciples. After a pilot episode was developed, the company raised $13 million in equity crowdfunding to finance the first season, the largest amount ever crowdfunded for a TV show. Also in 2017, a third foray into equity crowdfunding came from the launch of
Dry Bar Comedy, a series of 52 original
stand-up comedy sets filmed in Utah that are generally
clean and performed by lesser-known comedians. Much of its content went viral, with
Dry Bar Comedy videos receiving over two billion views as of 2021.
Launch of Angel Studios The success of
Dry Bar Comedy and
The Chosen gave way to a new business model that would allow the company to produce and distribute original content. The founders decided to focus on developing original content using its equity crowdfunding model and rebrand as Angel Studios. Angel Studios was named after the "angel investors" that participate in the new model that uses equity crowdfunding to finance original productions. These productions were distributed via the Angel Studios streaming platform for free. The company relied on a
pay what you want revenue model, coined "Pay It Forward", in which viewers can optionally pay for the content if they choose to support it. In early 2021, Angel Studios purchased the domain angel.com for $2 million. Soon after, Angel Studios launched an investment portal called Angel Funding that offered investment opportunities through Regulation Crowdfunding securities offerings. Several productions were successfully funded through the investment portal after its launch in 2021.
Tuttle Twins, a show for children with educational themes on
right-libertarian economic values raised $4.6 million in equity crowdfunding for its production.
The Wingfeather Saga, an animated series based on the award-winning book collection of the same name raised $1 million in the first 48 hours and $5 million in 20 days.
The Chosen, which was originally distributed through the VidAngel platform, was made available on Angel Studios for the launch of Season 2. The show became a viral hit worldwide. In 2022, Angel Studios raised $47 million in an investment round led by a Gigafund, a venture capital company. In May 2022, the studio reported that it had $123 million in revenue, and that 50,000 people have invested over $100 million for production of new original content on its platform. As of 2022, Angel Studios had 50,000 individual investors and had over $100 million worth of original content, including 12 titles, in production. In 2025, Angel Studios acquired Southport Acquisition in a reverse merger with the Connecticut
SPAC to become a publicly traded company valued at $1.6 billion, under the ticker symbol ANGX. The company went public on September 11, 2025 and closed up 8.4% on its first day.
Launch of the Angel Guild The Angel Guild, launched in 2023, is a group of approximately 1 million members who review and vote on completed episodes and movies to help Angel Studios decide if they should take on a project. If a film or show's voting results meet the Guild's minimum eligibility requirements, the project enters into a due diligence process to determine its potential for distribution. Angel Guild members pay a monthly or annual membership fee to receive exclusive benefits such as access to Angel Studios’ entire library, new monthly releases, merchandise discounts, two complimentary movie tickets to every release, and more. The Angel Guild supports Angel Studios’ mission to share stories that amplify light. Notable films greenlit by the Angel Guild include
His Only Son, which earned $13 million at the worldwide box office, and
Sound of Freedom, which grossed $250 million after Angel Guild members voted for its distribution. In 2025, Angel Studios signed a deal with U.K.'s only faith-based distributor, Kova Releasing, and signed global distribution deals with studios in dozens of other countries. ==Production library==