Angel Studios, which has built up a portfolio of values- and faith-based movies and TV shows and has 1.5 million members of its Angel Guild program, has completed a merger deal to become a publicly traded company.
The company, whose biggest hit is religious thriller movie “Sound of Freedom,” said Wednesday that it closed its business combination with Southport Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The SPAC deal values the combined entity at approximately $1.6 billion in pro-forma enterprise value. SPACs let companies raise financing and go public without having to launch a more time-consuming traditional IPO.
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The combined company will operate as Angel Studios Inc., and its shares of Class A common stock are expected to begin trading on New York Stock Exchange the morning of Sept. 11 under the ticker symbol “ANGX.”
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Neal Harmon, co-founder, chairman and CEO, will continue to lead the company post-merger. Two of his brothers are also senior execs: Jordan Harmon serves as president, and Jeffrey Harmon is chief content officer.
The company says it promotes values-driven storytelling.
“This marks a huge milestone for Angel and our 1.5 million-plus Guild members worldwide,” Neal Harmon said in a statement. “Our model and technology are leading a movement to reshape entertainment, empowering audiences as virtual co-producers. The Guild selects stories that amplify light and timeless values — curating a powerful library through greenlighting films and shows for theaters, TV, or Angel streaming — and we’re just getting started.”
The company is not profitable: For the first six months of 2025, Angel’s revenue increased nearly threefold to $135 million while its net loss ballooned to $53.3 million (versus a net loss of $37.4 million in the year-ago period).
The Angel Guild program generated $101.1 million in cash for the first half of the year — and Angel Guild revenue increased 517% in Q2 of this year. But according to the company, a significant portion of the overall net loss over the first six months of 2025 was due to the continued marketing expenses to increase Angel Guild memberships.
The Angel Guild lets its 1.5 million paying members vote to select which films and TV shows to greenlight and fund those projects with their membership fees. The basic tiers provide streaming of the studio’s movies and shows ($12/mo. with ads, $18/mo. with no ads); the premium $20/mo. plan offers ad-free streaming plus two tickets to every Angel theatrical movie release and a 20% discount on merch.
One of Angel Studios’ biggest hits was the TV show “The Chosen,” about the life of Jesus Christ. Last year, Angel lost the rights to the series after an arbitrator gave 5&2 Studios founder Dallas Jenkins oversight of “The Chosen” franchise.
To date, Angel Studios has released 36 films and 21 TV series. Among those is “Sound of Freedom,” which grossed $250 million at the worldwide box office; the religious thriller, starring Jim Caviezel (“The Passion of the Christ”), is based on the true story of Tim Ballard, a former government agent who embarks on a mission to rescue children from sex traffickers in Colombia. Another notablebox-office success was its animated film “The King of Kings,” a biblical epic released this spring.
The company claims it has had the highest per-release domestic box office average of any independent studio from 2023-25 (including A24, Universal’s Focus Features and Disney’s Searchlight Pictures). The company has also produced around 750 original comedy specials as part of its Dry Bar Comedy series.
Upcoming Angel theatrical releases include “The Senior” starring Michael Chiklis (Sept. 19) and the December release “Zero A.D.” starring Caviezel and directed by Alejandro Monteverde (who also helmed “Sound of Freedom”).
As of June 30, Angel had $28 million in cash and equivalents on its balance sheet. Liabilities included $40.1 million in deferred revenue and $29.6 million of the current portion of debt payable.
On Sept. 5, 2025, Angel Studios sold an aggregate of 1,250,000 shares of its Class C common stock at $44.00 per share, for gross proceeds of approximately $55 million. The sale, under the SEC’s Reg A+ rules for smaller companies, was made to 40,521 individual investors. And on Sept. 8, Angel Studios closed a $100 million credit facility with Trinity Capital, an alternative asset manager, that Angel will use to further expand the Angel Guild.
Harmon and other Angel Studios execs are scheduled to ring the NYSE closing bell on Thursday (Sept. 11), at 4 p.m. ET to close out its first day of trading.
Angel Studios, based in Provo, Utah, was originally founded as VidAngel in 2014. VidAngel, which operated a “family-friendly” streaming service that filtered out offensive content from movies, was sued by Hollywood studios for copyright infringement for streaming hundreds of movies without permission anda jury ordered VidAngel to pay $62.4 million to Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. The company had already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection; in 2020,a bankruptcy court approved its $9.9 million settlement with the studios and it reemerged as Angel Studios.
Pictured above: Jim Caviezel in “Sound of Freedom”
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