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Twin Engine, Tencent Announce Capital Tie-Up
posted on by Alex Mateo
Anime planning and production company Twin Engine (production for Vinland Saga, Dororo, Pet), Chinese internet conglomerate Tencent Holdings, Mecha Comic digital service operator Amutus Corporation, and BookLive announced on Monday that they have entered into a capital tie-up. The companies finished the first round of funding (Series A funding) in April 2019, and they are currently on the second round of funding (Series B funding).
The tie-up will enhance profitability of their gaming licenses and expand the global scope of their licensing business and intellectual property (IP). Through the capital tie-up with Tencent, the companies will further focus on planning, development, and production of animation content with key words of "gamification" and "globalization." They are working on the medium/long-term vision of creating worldwide game content linked to big IP.
Through Amutus and BookLive, the companies are launching an original IP project to jointly develop manga and anime. They hope to develop "in-house original" IP that leverages the strengths of each company. The funding is enabling them to actively invest in strategic areas and build relationships with business partners. The companies will steadily grow their business based on selling distribution rights and dedicating resources to original IP devleopment.
Twin Engine established the EOTA studio team in April 2020. The team includes producers and creators from Studio Colorido, Geno Studio, Lay-duce, Peakys, daisy, FILMONY, and team Yamahitsuji. EOTA allows the studios to pool resources and work together to produce video content for worldwide distribution, create short content for social media and other platforms, and form a group that can continue to produce works under flexible circumstances. The new studio team allows the studios to cooperate and utilize each other's strengths and expertise. Twin Engine established two new anime studios in October 2021: Bug Film and Scooter Films. The studios are part of the EOTA team.
Representative director Kōji Yamamoto founded Twin Engine in 2014.
Tencent announced in October 2021 that it would acquire a 6.86% stake in Japanese publisher Kadokawa. Tencent invested 65.7 billion yen (about US$567 million) into retail company Rakuten in March 2021. Tencent, through its Hong Kong-based Image Frame Investment subsidiary, acquired 8.6 million of shares in Marvelous, along with 708,600 of primary shareholder Hayao Nakayama's shares and 2.83 million of Amuse Capital's shares, in May 2020.
Sources: Twin Engine, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web, 4Gamer
