Whomor, Japan’s crowdsourced comic studio, raises $1.6M from Digital Garage

(The Bridge) – Tokyo-based Whomor, the Japanese company offering a crowdsourcing platform focused on illustrations and 3D computer graphics, unveiled today that it has fundraised 200 million yen (about $1.6 million) from DG Incubation and DK Gate. DG Incubation is the investment arm of Japanese internet giant Digital Garage while DK Gate is a joint venture company of Digital Garage and Kodansha, a Japanese leading publishing company.

In addition to receiving outsourced comic productions, they have been developing original comic series based on their intellectual property as well as monetizing new comic media. Producing native advertising content using comics, the company started publishing these ads in the game media section of Yahoo Japan this year. They also claimed they’ve enhanced partnerships with media websites introducing apps, intellectual property owners in the gaming industry in Japan and rest of the world, and comic-focused media websites in China and Korea.

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Since its launch back in January of 2011, Whomor has established a crowdsourcing platform for comics and storyboards, enabling mass-produced high quality content by optimized job dilution in the production process from jotting down ideas, to drawing and finishing sketches. At Rising Expo 2015, a startup showcase event hosted by CyberAgent Ventures in August, Whomor CEO Mikiya Shibatsuji claimed in his pitch that the company has acquired 3,000 crowdsourced creators on the platform, while 70% of them are coming from Japan and the remaining 30% workforce from outside Japan.

Whomore has been massively collaborating with other comic publishing platforms through efforts like securing partnership with DeNA Mangabox and Manga Gift as well as acquiringAndrobook from Voyage Group (TSE:3688).

In partnership with Kodansha Advanced Media, DK Gate is dealing with digital distribution and global expansion of Japanese books and comic publications. Through the partnership with DK Gate upon latest funding, Whomor is expected to accelerate the global expansion efforts of their original content.

Edited by “Tex” Pomeroy