Sherry Gunther Shugerman was recently named co-CEO of HEEBOO, a Montreal, Canada-based studio and in-the-works crowdfunding platform that wants to give creators a new way to finance kids content with less risk.

Gunther Shugerman is a former Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network exec who worked as an EP on Dexter’s Laboratory and PowerPuff Girls. She also knows firsthand the importance—and challenges—of launching digital-first IPs, after doing so with her own property, The Beatrix Girls. This brand about a group of girl rockstars rolled out in 2011 on YouTube; today, it has 22 million followers on the platform, and spans original videos, music and toys.

Gunther Shugerman has joined HEEBOO to help other creators and producers achieve similar success with fledgling IPs they’re struggling to finance.

But what exactly is HEEBOO? 

On one hand, HEEBOO is a studio building its own IP, Claynosaurz (which has already earned more than US$10 million through the company’s crowdfunding approach). And part of Gunther Shugerman’s job will be to add more proprietary projects to the company’s slate.

But at the same time, HEEBOO will run a same-name funding platform, offering fans a chance to get engaged with projects at the earliest development stages and own a small piece of these IPs. The funding platform is in the works now, and when it’s up and running, it will give creators a model for attracting individual investors to help finance a project’s growth.

So it’s a funding platform. How will that work? 

HEEBOO says creators will be able to upload their IPs onto the platform. And users can then invest in them and receive digital equity tokens that represent shares in the property.

Fans who don’t invest but who drum up a lot of interest through sharing the property’s content online and participating in campaigns, will also be rewarded with equity tokens. The more that fans contribute, the more tokens they earn.

IPs on the platform will have a shared treasury system, meaning that funding for a project will only be passed on to the creator once an audience is established. For investors, this means there’s less risk of ideas fizzling out after receiving funds, and it also encourages fans to increase their engagement if they really want to see a project succeed.

With a platform like HEEBOO, similar to Kickstarter or other crowdfunding platforms, the market will decide which stories are worthy of getting made, a company spokesperson says.

Do creators still own their work?

Under this model, creators will retain a controlling ownership stake in their IPs, only selling part of it to fans and investors in exchange for fandom and funding, according to the HEEBOO spokesperson. If a brand takes off with lots of fans and investment, creators are free to shop it around off-platform or sell it to a bigger studio.

So it’s all about building an audience?

Producers today are struggling to finance and monetize their IPs because of shrinking broadcaster and streamer budgets; plus platforms like YouTube aren’t paying out a lot, Gunther Shugerman notes. And even just building an audience can be a challenge when there’s so much content out there competing for kids’ attention. The goal with HEEBOO is to solve all of these challenges. “[HEEBOO is] a new way to launch, validate, fund and scale IPs by building the fan base and the funding before you ever start investing in a property,” says Gunther Shugerman.

Beyond developing its own projects—which will use this model, too—HEEBOO is open to working with any kids & family creators who want to de-risk their new IP launches.

“It not only provides more opportunities for great IPs and great creators; it disrupts a model that’s currently not working very well,” says Gunther Shugerman. “It allows people to scale and monetize in a really measured way. And it tells you [if there’s success] right away, before you go and spend millions of dollars and years to build it.”