Tubi Puts $250,000 Into Kickstarter Partnership to Court Indie Creators

Fox's Tubi is committing $250,000 to a new fund with Kickstarter designed to bring emerging creators and their exclusive projects to the free streamer, with premieres starting in 2027.

The partnership, announced as the Fandom Fund, splits the money two ways. Tubi will spread $150,000 across roughly eight to 15 creators working in genres that already perform well on the platform: stories centered on Black characters and experiences, horror, young adult, reality, and true crime. A single project will receive $100,000 in matching funds to produce a full film or series.

Kickstarter's role is sourcing. The crowdfunding platform will recommend creators to Tubi. The new effort expands on the two companies' 2025 FilmStream Collective Fund, which helped creators finish films and bring them to the ad-supported streamer.

What does the deal actually give creators?

Two things money can't easily buy: scale and ownership. Recipients keep their intellectual property and gain access to Tubi's 110 million monthly active users. In exchange, Tubi gets to premiere each project and run it exclusively for a window of varying month-long periods, beginning in 2027. After that window, the creators are free to take their work elsewhere.

That structure signals what Tubi is really buying. The streamer already counts more than 700 creators distributing nonexclusive content on its platform. What it lacks — and what rivals including Netflix and Disney are also chasing — is new, exclusive fare from YouTubers and other internet-native talent as audience attention shifts toward social media.

The fund deliberately targets the smaller end of the creator pool, not established names.

"This is an opportunity for more emerging creators, versus bigger, more established creators, who, even with this big push across media to do more with creators, aren't necessarily getting those opportunities," said Rich Bloom, Tubi's GM of creator programs and EVP of business development.

Why Kickstarter is in the mix

Kickstarter's CEO, Everette Taylor, frames the fund as a response to a financing gap. Cuts to programming spending across Hollywood, he argued, have left independent creators with few places to turn for production money.

"What I'm hearing from creators is, I have my own audience, I have a great idea, I want to shoot this thing, but I don't know how I'm going to monetize it after," Taylor said.

That's the pitch in a sentence. Creators bring audiences and ideas; the platforms bring distribution and, now, upfront capital.

For Tubi, the bet fits a broader pattern. The Fox-owned service has built its audience on free, ad-supported streaming and on content categories the bigger platforms have historically under-served. Deepening its creator pipeline through Kickstarter gives it first look at projects in exactly those categories, without taking on IP risk or production cost beyond the fund itself.

What does this change for marketing leaders?

For brands and content marketers watching creator budgets, the message is that the fight for indie talent is moving upstream — into financing. When streamers start writing checks at the idea stage, creators' loyalties and distribution choices get locked in earlier. Expect more co-funding structures like this one, and expect IP ownership to remain the creator-side deal-breaker.