In the world of webtoons, as the tide turns toward the web.3.0 innovations, Korean Web 3.0 media startup ‘OG Inc., which launched its service in February 2022, announced it had attracted an undisclosed seed investment from Future Play. OG, a web 3.0 media startup, develops and operates a PFP NFT based on its IP and a web 3.0 decentralized webtoon platform ‘Animania.’
The growing global community of the ‘Zero X Gakuen’ project
OG is working on the ‘Zero X Gakuen’ project, the first of its IP. ZeroxGakuen combines the hexadecimal encryption code ‘0x’ and the Japanese word ‘Gakuen,’ which means academy. It was the first Web 3.0 subculture brand. Currently, OG is building an Ethereum-based NFT collection using ‘Zero X Gakuen,’ and the Minting (NFT issuance ) schedule is yet to be determined.
In March of this year, OG first unveiled the ‘Zero X Gakuen’ community via Twitter and Discord. Ozzie announced the Zero X Gakuen IP through its own Web 3.0 decentralized webtoon platform ‘Animania.’ currently, more than 90% of community members are non-Koreans. The community grew to about 70,000 in two months, confirming the possibility of IP expansion covering real and virtual. It is evaluated as a project faithful to the grammar of Web 3.0 (Global or Nothing) for the global market.
“We plan to expand and provide it as a webtoon. Animania will utilize NFT to adopt a reader-participatory interactive storytelling technique differentiated from the existing webtoon platform and will provide global services in various languages such as English, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian,” said Hong-in Lee, CEO of OG. “Web 3.0 has structural competitiveness compared to the existing Web 2.0 platform in that it returns utility to users, not platform operators. With this investment as an opportunity, we will expand our business rapidly and focus on creating the best products that can reach global consumers.”
Future Play judge Oh Hyo-min, who made this investment, said, “The validity of Animania and NFT keywords has already been confirmed by the project’s success, which ranked 6th in the most-traded NFT collection ever on OpenSea. It seems to be based on the point of contact between blockchain and subculture that started from decentralization, and the point of contact between NFTs and anime based on preference for virtual characters.” He added, “OG is building a solid IP based on a high understanding of both Animania and NFT markets, so we decided to invest because we believe it will be able to grow into a global web 3.0 webtoon platform company based on its IP lineup that encompasses real and virtual.”
