The 2.92 billion yen raised in the Pre-Series A round is higher than the amount typically raised in Series A in Japan, indicating that there are high expectations for the service and the company.
For reference, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has announced that the amount of Series A funding is approximately 200 million yen, which is more than 10 times higher than the average amount raised.
Furthermore, since this amount was raised not as Series A, but as a pre-Series A, it will be interesting to see how large the amount will be when Series A and B are completed.
The official release states
Orange Corporation (Head Office: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Seihiro Ugaki) announces that it has raised a total of 2.92 billion yen in a pre-series A round of funding from several venture capital and operating companies, with existing investor Globis Capital Partners as the lead investor Globis Capital Partners is the lead investor.
With this financing, the Company aims to expand the scale of its manga translation services using its proprietary tools to translate 500 manga per month, which is approximately five times the current pace of translating Japanese manga into English (according to our own research).
In addition, we will complete the establishment of a U.S. corporation in March 2024 and launch “emaqi,” an electronic manga store in the U.S. in the summer of 2024 to promote the translated works.
https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000006.000125868.html
One of the interesting aspects of this release was that it included information on manga translation and production in the form of a manga, which was both unique and provided an understanding of the market environment in which manga translation takes place.
