Leading Chinese animation producer Alpha Animation launched a new investment to produce more IP content, following previous investments in virtual reality (VR).
Linglong Culture, a company that makes movies and games from books and theater scripts, on Monday announced to receive RMB 100 million (USD 15 million) from Alpha Animation in Series A financing.
Linglong said its strategy is to increase its supply of IP content, which includes reducing the commission it charges writers to a nominal fee of 1% and converting promising franchises into manga, anime, TV dramas, movies, and even games, thus covering a bigger market with its IP resources.
Since IP is the core of Alpha Animation, said Alpha’s president Cai Dongqing, cooperating with Linglong is expected to contribute to Alpha’s goal of combining IP with technology.
Founded in 1993, Guangdong Alpha Animation and Culture is no longer merely a toy maker. It now focuses on producing animation, planning to break into the VR market with it.
Alpha is ambitiously aiming to become the “Oriental Disneyland” by combining its core IP businesses with VR. Its first step is to acquire high-quality content. It acquired the original comics site “Yaoqi” for RMB 900 million last August.
Then it entered the VR and AI sectors by investing in motion capture company Noitom and becoming a shareholder of VR product maker DeePoon. It also invested RMB two billion in developing intelligent robots, wearable watches and other intelligent terminals, reported Sohu Business.
Alpha Animation, which is planning to change its name to “Alpha Entertainment”, had a total turnover of approximately RMB 2.6 billion in 2015, with profit reaching RMB 508 million, a 20% year-on-year increase, Sina News reported.
(Top photo from Alpha Animation’s official website)