Comic characters and super heroes creator, Graphic India has raised seed funding of $2.8 Mn (INR 17.5 Cr) from its existing investor CA Media LP, the Asian investment arm of The Chernin Group, LLC (TCG), and NY-based investment group Start Media.
The funding also saw the participation of angel investors from Backflip Studios.
Launched in 2012, Mumbai-based Graphic India was founded by Devarajan, Gotham Chopra and Suresh Seetharaman as a subsidiary of the US-based Liquid Comics. The company produces digital comics & animation for both offline and online to create new character franchises.
Since its inception, the startup has licensed its digital comics and characters into television and films of Cartoon Network, Rovio, YouTube, Mandalay and Lionsgate.
Graphic India plans to infuse the funds raised to launch new superheroes and characters for India through mobile to capture 550 Mn youths (under the age of 25) as well as 850 Mn-strong mobile market in India.
It further, wants to unveil a number of digital products and apps in India over next few months to engage directly with the fans of comic book and animation. It will be releasing 100s of free digital comics and videos in many local Indian languages apart from English, Hindi, Tamil.
Sharad Devarajan, co-founder and CEO, Graphic India said, “This new financing will expand our content offering and allow us to create India’s premiere mobile platform for comics and animation.”
Revealing its future strategy Graphic India plans to work with Stan Lee and his POW! Entertainment on producing ‘Chakra The Invincible’, its first superhero for the Indian market, as Lee’s first Bollywood live-action film.
Prior to this, in 2013, the startup had raised $2.5 Mn funding from CA Media. Apart from this, CA Media has also invested in companies like Flipboard, Tumblr, Pandora and Fullscreen.
