Participated · Seed · Aug 2024

VoyceMe is a first-of-its-kind platform that centralizes the manga and webtoon fandom experience, allowing users to read, interact with creators, stream anime, purchase merchandise, and create their own series. The company provides a proprietary ethical generative-AI tool trained on its own dataset to help professional artists reduce burnout and to democratize manga creation for new creators. VoyceMe is currently in beta with plans for general availability in 2025, and says it can produce content five times faster and seven and a half times more cost-efficiently than other studios. It reports strong traction—over eight million monthly visits, two million monthly active users, and a 1,000% readership increase since 2023. The firm has pursued strategic partnerships and IP deals, including Heavy Metal Comics, rights to a Night of the Living Dead prequel, licensing arrangements with top Japanese and South Korean platforms, and a partnership with Zokio. Recent senior hires from Wattpad, WEBTOON, and Netflix are intended to drive product development and strategic initiatives as VoyceMe scales. Voyce.Me offers an English-language platform for creators to develop, publish and monetize manga and webtoons while engaging directly with fans. The company partners with creators to produce in-house content, leverages existing IP and licenses IP from user-generated content. Creators can instantly make money from their content through the platform’s all-in-one distribution and social features. Voyce.Me reports strong engagement metrics, with over 8M pageviews per month, nearly 350K unique views per month and an average of 23 minutes spent on the platform. The company plans to use new funding to accelerate growth in its technology and audience-development teams, hire additional developers and scale its product line. Leadership is led by founder and CEO Dylan Telano, and the company is based in Los Angeles, CA.

Participated · Series A · Nov 2023

Hang is an NYC-based provider of a direct-to-consumer sports platform that builds fan-celebrity community experiences. The company's product powers virtual watch parties around major sports events, letting fans interact with athletes, performers, and influencers while watching on their own devices. Hang reports driving 800,000 views of each virtual watch party and has connected more than 22 million young sports fans since its founding in September 2021. Led by CEO Jon Klein and CTO Lorne Greene, the company plans to use its new funding to accelerate product development and audience growth. Hang aims to expand its position in the sports media category. The business recently raised $9.2M in Series A financing. Hang produces interactive live virtual watch parties that gather current and former star athletes and celebrities to watch events while facilitating audience interaction — the company emphasizes streaming the "chatter" around games rather than the game feed itself. Its production combines social-media style engagement with professional remote live video production and sometimes a physical gathering (for example, renting a house in LA for players). Hang leans on experienced media and virtual-event operators, including founder Jon Klein and partner Lorne Greene, and uses talent wranglers like Teresa Villano to assemble players who know and enjoy each other. In only four months of operation the company has booked $750,000 in sponsorship revenue and has raised $3.5 million in funding. Hang is currently seeking an additional $10 million to accelerate growth. The team plans to expand the format beyond sports into other live-event verticals (politics, award shows) and pursue branded sponsorship and localized corporate events.