REALDRAW Secures 2.2 Billion Won for AI-Based Webtoon Production Expansion
REALDRAW, a Korean AI-based webtoon production company, has successfully secured 2.2 billion won in pre-Series A funding. The investment round was led by Altos Ventures, with The Yoonmin Foundation also participating, following up on their initial seed investment.
Established in June 2023, REALDRAW is dedicated to streamlining the process of webtoon creation and supporting the production of webtoons that are both large-scale and high-quality. The company has developed technology through extensive R&D that can learn an artist’s style and intricately express human emotions. By collaborating with renowned artists and planning to undertake global-level projects such as IP remakes, REALDRAW aims to evolve into a supplier of content based on technological innovation.
Sang-Gyu Choi, the founder and CEO of REALDRAW, has a background in leading webtoon production and development at Watcha. The company’s core team includes art directors and technology leaders with experience in webtoon and game production at companies like Watcha and NCSoft. The webtoon market has been experiencing remarkable growth. According to Sensor Tower, a mobile data analytics firm, as of December 6th last year, the global comic app market’s revenue reached approximately 3.6 trillion won. Furthermore, revenue sharing with creators on Naver Webtoon has increased 87-fold in the past decade, growing from 23.2 billion won in 2013 to 2.25 trillion won last year.
As the market expands, the methods of content creation by artists are evolving. While previously a single webtoon artist would manage all tasks, now a collaborative studio group format with 10-20 members is becoming more prevalent. However, this approach faces challenges in maintaining consistent art styles and content quality, especially under tight deadlines. REALDRAW’s goal is to enhance the efficiency of the webtoon production environment, ultimately establishing itself as a global content studio.
Oh Moon-Seok, a partner at Altos Ventures, commented, “The webtoon market has opened up another avenue for the globalization of K-content. However, its creation method remained labor-intensive, posing constraints on market expansion. We believe REALDRAW, with its technology-based approach, will ascend as a global content production company that elevates the quality of its works, which is why we decided to invest.”
Sang-Gyu Choi, CEO of REALDRAW, shared his insights, saying, “Having worked in the webtoon industry for several years, I’ve deeply understood the critical importance of the creators’ artistic freedom and rights. Our goal is to empower creators to craft higher-level webtoons for the global market through AI, and to eventually grow into a global content studio comparable to Pixar.”
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RealDraw Secures SpringCamp Investment for Webtoon Innovation – 와우테일(WOWTALE)
[…] additional pre-Series A investment from SpringCamp. Just two months after successfully attracting 2.2 billion KRW in pre-Series A funding led by Altos Ventures, RealDraw has now received further investment from […]