Led · Seed · Mar 2019

Serial Box publishes serialized stories as weekly episodes in both text and audio, using a TV-style showrunner model to lead writing teams. The first episode of each story is free; additional episodes cost $1.99 each or are available via a season pass. Writers on the platform include Gwenda Bond, Yoon Ha Lee, Max Gladstone and Becky Chambers, and the company will publish Marvel-based stories starting with Thor. Product plans in the near term include the launch of an Android app next week and further product upgrades and content partnerships in the coming months. The company aims to adapt traditional book publishing for the smartphone age by borrowing production and distribution influences from audio, podcasting, gaming and TV. Serial Box recently raised seed funding, which it intends to deploy toward these product and content initiatives. Serial Box produces serialized stories written by teams of writers and publishes them weekly in both e-book and audio form. Each week’s episode is released as a roughly 30-minute read or an hour listen during a three-month season. Serials are distributed via the company’s apps, website, and third-party retailers. The company was founded by Molly Barton and Julian Yap. It has recently collaborated with The Associated Press, Adaptive Studios, and Hachette Book Group. Serial Box announced a $1.65M seed investment and intends to use the funds to continue to expand its offerings.

Led · Equity · Apr 2017

MarcoPolo Learning is a NYC-based early childhood education company that provides mobile-based education content. Led by co-founder and executive chairman Nazar Yasin and CEO Justin Hsu, the company reaches over 5 million children in more than 150 countries, including the U.S., China, Russia, the UK, and Japan. Its core product suite comprises mobile education apps for young children. The company plans to expand its suite of early childhood education apps and to produce premium animated long-form video content. It will produce the video content in partnership with Boat Rocker Media and its family of companies. The company raised funding to support these product and content initiatives.