HIKKY Corporation, a provider of development solutions for VR services, raised 500 million yen through a third-party allotment of new shares with Mediadoo Inc. as the underwriter, and entered into a capital and business alliance on January 18, 2022.
HIKKY also announced that the procurement completed for 7 billion yen, including 6.5 billion yen for the first close in October 2021 with NTT DoCoMo as the underwriter.
Purpose of the Fundraising and Future Development
HIKKY intends to use the funds for the following purposes
- Develop an open metaverse and provide services
- Reinforcement of the development structure of the Vket Cloud engine
- Reinforcement of the development structure for the virtual market business
- Business expansion, including overseas expansion
- New VR consulting business
- Strengthen recruitment of human resources
What is an open metaverse?
The open metaverse that HIKKY advocates is
- An environment where people come and go beyond platform barriers
- Experience and communication with a large number of people in an open world
- Original content development in a unique domain
- Easy device-free and app-free access
- Providing experiences that fuse the real and virtual
The service is designed to realize the following
Together with creators and partner companies connected through the virtual market business, we will develop and deploy services in an "open metaverse" using our proprietary "Vket Cloud" engine. The company will provide a variety of services to create new innovations through creativity and communication in an open metaverse.
VR content development engine "Vket Cloud
"Vket Cloud" is a unique VR content development engine developed by HIKKY. It can be accessed by simply clicking on a URL on a browser such as a smartphone or PC, enabling a new style of metaverse content development. Multiplayer play is also supported, and users can enjoy communicating with other users in the same space using voice and text chat.
Virtual Market
The " Virtual Market " organized by HIKKY is an event that attracts many creators, international companies, and more than 1 million visitors.
In 2020, HIKKY won the top prize in the marketing category at the international VR awards ceremony "VR AWARDS" and the top prize at the "XR CREATIVE AWARD 2020" in Japan. On the technical side, the company won the Grand Prix at the "Ruby biz Grand prix 2021". In 2021, the company also obtained two Guinness World Records™, and has been featured in media around the world, attracting attention.
Business Alliance with Mediadoo
HIKKY has formed a business alliance with Mediadoo, a leading e-book distributor in Japan with more than 2,200 publishers and 150 e-bookstores. With a vision of "as many contents as possible to as many people as possible," we are developing and providing distribution platforms and solutions, as well as content distribution.
In 2021, the two companies will launch the NFT marketplace "FanTop" and "NFT Digital Privilege Publications" in collaboration with Tohan, and B-to-C services will be available at bookstores nationwide.
Through this partnership, the two companies will create a community of users, creators and fans, and expand the possibilities of interaction and IP collaboration through fan art and other means.
In addition, we will pursue synergies through "MyAnimeList," one of the world's largest anime and manga communities and databases, which the Mediadu Group is working on.
Comments from Yasutsugu Fujita, President and CEO of Mediadoo, Inc.
Mediadoo's goal has always been to maximize the distribution and return of profits from copyrighted works in order to realize a healthy cycle of creation and contribute to the development of culture. We believe that the metaverse, where diverse communities are created just as in reality, will become an economic sphere with a large area for content distribution in the future, removing the gap between the metaverse and reality. We are truly delighted to be partnering with HIKKY, which is organizing a global event on the Metaverse and developing its own VR open platform. We share the idea of "creating a new economic sphere in an open metaverse" and will challenge distribution in the metaverse in a wide range of fields, including e-books. Together, we will make further efforts to deliver new experience value to users and to help expand the distribution of content and other products.
Comment from Yasushi Funakoshi, CEO of HIKKY Co.
We are very pleased to be working with Mediadoo, following NTT DOCOMO. We are looking forward to evolving the trust and track record that Mediadoo has built with numerous publishers and bookstores into a new way to enjoy reading in the Metaverse, leveraging HIKKY's expertise. We also aim to create a new environment in which the appeal of manga and other content can be shared interactively, sometimes with other users and sometimes with publishers. We are convinced that these are initiatives that will further expand the possibilities for creators. We have many more ideas in the works, but today's announcement with NTT DOCOMO and MEDIADO is the first step in realizing our business, and we will continue to strive to expand our Metaverse business and provide experiences that bridge the gap between the real world and the future.
HIKKY is now hiring!
In addition, HIKKY is actively recruiting for a number of positions to strengthen its structure. For more information, please refer to the HIKKY Corporation Recruitment Information page.