爱游戏

On August 23, China’s largest national comic platform Kuaikan Comics app announced the completion of $240 million in financing, with this round of funding from CCB International, One Store, Tencent, Coatue, and Tiantu Capital. This is the largest single funding round to date for Kuaikan Comics, which sets a new record for the amount of funding in the comic industry. Tiantu Capital had led the Series C round of funding for Kuaikan in 2016, and continued to increase the amount in the subsequent financing.

At the same time, Annie Chen, the founder & CEO of Kuaikan Comics, announced in an internal email the latest user data of the company, which now has more than 340 million total users, with Generation Z users accounting for 90% to 94% of the total monthly activity of the product of nearly 50 million, a record high. Thanks to the implementation of its all-network strategy, the comics of Kuaikan platform have been distributed on the whole network in China and on more than 70 content distribution platforms worldwide, bringing the made-in-China cultural consumer goods to the world.

At the completion of this round of financing, Kuaikan also officially launched the “Double Billion” creative support plan, which means that in the next three years, the company will invest 1 billion RMB to support the original comic business, and another 1 billion RMB to participate in the production of comic series with partners. At the same time, Kuaikan also provides the community users from new creators to adult creators training program. “Create a better platform for innovation on Kuaikan.”

Founded in 2014, Kuaikan is the “No. 1 platform for domestic comics”, with more active users than the second to sixth place in the market combined and a market share of over 50%. At present, Kuaikan comics business has already achieved profitability, and the total revenue scale has maintained more than 50% growth every year.

On August 5 this year, Kuaikan Comics was officially upgraded to Kuaikan and announced to build a “Super New Generation Z” community. This generation is related to the generation born after 2000, younger than Generation Z. They are not only happy to consume content, but also happy to create. They use interest tags to post and persona tags to make friends, forming the unique community atmosphere and culture of Kuaikan. Today, the community has become a new forum for the dissemination and discussion of national comics, and a backyard for the creative power of this group of  the super new Generation Z.

Annie Chen said, “Chinese comic is a cultural consumer product made in China. Its development represents the growing cultural confidence of Chinese readers and the mission of bringing Chinese culture to the world. Kuaikan has been insisting on digitizing the national comic industry since day one, using digitalization to create an innovative model for the creation, distribution and commercialization of national comics, so as to create works that make the world feel happy and moved.”

Zou Yunli, the managing partner of Tiantu Capital, said, “We continue to be optimistic about Kuaikan’s ability to continue to produce, discover and operate excellent IPs. The whole team of Kuaikan is very focused and understands creators very well. In addition, the ultra-new Generation Z user population of Kuaikan also has a vigorous desire to create and a strong creative ability, and the super new generation Z is concentrated in the Kuaikan community, which we believe will bring more happiness and emotion to users in the future.”

Since its establishment in 2014, Kuaikan Comics has been based on the industry as an innovator. At the beginning of its founding, it led the industry into the strip comic era through strip comic innovation; in 2021, it again gained insight into user needs and launched a brand new product, video comic drama, to push the comic industry into the video era. After the completion of the new round of financing, Kuiakan will continue to innovate and bring more diversified entertainment content to the “super new generation Z”.

The following is the full text of the internal email from Annie Chen to Kuaikan employees, named A comic about a group of people.

Dear fellows,

Good morning, everyone. Today I have two pieces of good news to share with you.

First news:

Just last week, we just closed a new round of financing of $240 million, invested by CCB International, One Store, Tencent, Coatue, SkyMap and other institutions. This is the largest single funding round to date for Kuaikan, and once again sets a new record for the amount of funding it holds in the comic industry.

The fact that we were able to successfully close the financing and exceed the original plan in such a tight environment recently is a testament to the strength of our company. This is not only the affirmation of the investors to the past achievements of Kuaikan, but also the strong optimism to the future trend of the Chinese comics and the super new Generation Z community that we insist on.

Domestic comic is a made-in-China cultural consumer product.

Its development represents that Chinese readers have more and more cultural self-confidence, and it also has the mission of bringing Chinese culture to the world; and Kuaikan, from day one, has insisted on digitizing the national comic industry, using digitalization to create an innovative model for the creation, distribution and commercialization of national comics, and in this way, striving to create works that make the world feel happy and moved.

We are full of expectation: this is the great trend of the country and the world – made-in-China will be more popular in the world stage in the future.

We are also full of confidence: Kuaikan has maintained its position as the number one active user in the industry, while remaining an independent startup, which is of great significance to the national comic industry. We look forward to the future competition and cooperation with the market, we can work together to make the national comic industry bigger.

Second news:

Our latest total number of users has exceeded 340 million, with Generation Z users accounting for between 90% and 94%, and the total monthly activity of each end product is nearly 50 million, reaching a new record high.

This monthly activity figure is definitely more meaningful than ever, because:

Compared with pure free reading 2 years ago, today, 90% of comic content read by users has entered into paid mode. This means that, in addition to the free traffic value, the paid value of national comics has also been recognized by users, which is an important step to verify the IP value of the work.

Our comic business has been profitable for a long time, and the total revenue scale has maintained a growth of over 50% every year in the past. And this year’s Q3, paid revenue has also achieved a year-on-year growth of more than 70% so far.

The Kuaikan community ecosystem is gradually flourishing, with user activity reaching a record high in the same period. Currently, more than 50% of Kuaikan users are playing the community every day, with a total of 3,593,705 community creations, and more than 85% of the users are post-00s. It has become a new forum for the dissemination and discussion of national comics, and also a backyard for the creative power of this “super new generation Z”.

The above is the result of the “long-distance running” we proposed two years ago and began to abandon the flow-only theory, thus transforming into paid, incubating works with IP value, doing UGC contribution construction, and doing community construction for the new generation of young people. It is the result of precipitation. Today, we have made a difficult but correct decision based on the long term.

As I write this letter after successfully closing this round of financing, I look back on the past and have mixed feelings - this result is not easy to come by.

What we are building is an industry that is still in its infancy in all aspects; what we are pioneering is a new model that no one has tried before; what we are facing is the difficulty of competing with the leading world-class animation companies under the lack of conditions... It is a road full of hardships and not being understood.

Therefore, on this road, to those who have struggled for countless nights and shed countless sweat and tears, serving and departing employees,

Thank you.

This recognition of the market belongs to you.

Because of your past efforts, tolerance and perseverance, the company is always able to regain momentum and overcome difficulties in frustrating moments. As we have stumbled along the way, we are aware that there are still too many problems in the operation of this company that need to be reflected and improved.

But the optimistic situation is that in the past year, Kuaikan has brought in talents from various fields, which have helped solve many problems in business and system; many veteran employees have grown into the core backbone that guards the values of us; and various long-term management systems have been gradually implemented. And in the future, we will be more determined in repairing our internal strength: talent introduction and training, promoting information flow and openness, cross-team project implementation, incentive policy optimization, and improving operational efficiency... I always have confidence that with everyone’s collective efforts, Kuaikan will become a stronger and better enterprise, providing better services for creators and more happiness and touch for users. I’m always confident that with our collective efforts, Kuaikan will become a stronger and better company, providing better services to creators and more happiness and emotion to users.

People always ask me: Do you still draw comics?

My answer is: I still do, but this time, there are many authors involved.

You can probably guess what it’s about...

A long comic, about a group of people.

Annie