2 months ago
EXCLUSIVE: Birdman co-writer Armando Bo has teamed pinch tech investor Ariel Arrieta and Latin American streaming pioneer Tomás Escobar to create what nan trio opportunity is Latin America’s first vertical bid platform.
The motorboat of Shorta is arguably nan astir important microdrama move successful Latin America, arsenic nan vertical video craze continues to dispersed astir nan world. The app has launched connected iOS and Andriod app stores, pinch a scheme to surpass 500 original productions by December 2027. A big of Latin American creatives are attached to supply content, and galore investors are backing its creation.
The app debuts pinch much than 40 bid successful genres specified arsenic horror, sci-fi, comedy, thriller and romance, a motion to Shorta’s attack to expanding vertical video accumulation beyond nan melodrama-heavy stories that presently specify nan medium.
Creators moving pinch Shorta see El Marginal showrunner Alejandro Ciancio; Argentine character and contented creators Jero Freixas and Julieta Coria; Balthazar Murillo, prima of Netflix biopic bid La Vide de Carlos Tevez; Amor Animal lead character Tatiana Glikman; Argentine director, writer, and showrunner Ariana Saiegh; vocalist and Soy Luna character Malena Ratner; and Cromañón prima El Purre (José Giménez Zapiola).
Ciancio has already produced 3 bid for Shorta: Verdad o Shot, Debt and different presently untitled show, while Saiegh, who is known for nan likes of Berlinale Series Market action Familia de Diván, Disney+’s Entre Paredes and Star+ Brazil show Dos Tiempos, has already made Independencia for nan vertical vid app.
Shorta’s founders stock a condemnation that Hispanic audiences “deserve a location for original, value vertical fabrication — and nary 1 has built it yet.” The app is moving to a profit-sharing exemplary that nan founders opportunity intends creators tin turn alongside nan platform. In that sense, their scheme is person to a YouTube and Spotify exemplary alternatively than a accepted TV aliases movie deal.
Long-time Alejandro G. Inárritu collaborator Bo is known arsenic co-writer of Birdman (or nan Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), which won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. He besides created and was showrunner connected Prime Video’s 2022 bid El Presidente (The President) and was an exec shaper connected Cromañón, different bid for nan streamer. He is nan laminitis of sister accumulation houses Rebolución and About Entertainment, pinch nan erstwhile a respected advertizing shaper and nan second a co-producer connected El Presidente alongside Gaumont, Fabula and Kapow.
Escobar is nan co-founder of early Latin American streaming work Cuevana, which ran betwixt 2009 and 2014, and created online acquisition level Acamica. Arrieta is an entrepreneur and task capitalist, known arsenic nan laminitis of Digital Ventures, which was acquired by Fox successful 2007, and Managing Partner of NXTP Ventures, which backs tech companies successful Latin America.
Of nan three, Bo brings nan imaginative vision, Escobár nan tech and streaming know-how and Arrieta nan operational and finance eye.
“Shorta is wherever cinematic connection meets nan beat of nan net — a much open, much permeable exemplary wherever much voices create much stories, and caller ways of telling them,” said Bo.
“It’s a abstraction wherever actors, board and creators go showrunners, generating their ain bid and redefining nan standard of fiction. A caller motor that discovers talent and creates opportunities for those who want to show stories but haven’t had nan entree — until now.”
Further investors successful nan level comprise Mariano Mayer from Newtopia VC, Rebeca Hwang (Kalei Ventures), Guillermo Rauch (Vercel), Martín Varsavsky (Myelin VC), Matías Woloski (Auth0), Emiliano Kargieman (Satellogic), Patricio Jutard (Mural), Hernán Fernández (Angel Ventures Mexico), Eric Acher (Monashees), Marta Cruz (NXTP), Pablo Garfinkel (Tokai Ventures), Rogelio de los Santos (Dalus Capital), Ignacio Plaza (Draper Cygnus), Tomas Braun (Proximity Angels), and Gabriel Martino (BFLinvest) among others.
