Rajesh Kamat, managing director of KKR-backed Emerald Media, and Den Networks founder and serial media entrepreneur Sameer Manchanda, have invested in Animeta, a creator tech platform founded by Anish Mehta, the former CEO of animation studio Cosmos-Maya.
Animeta is an AI-based self-service creator tech platform that seeks to create and nurture the Asian digital-creator economy, through financial as well as analytical support. Singapore-registered Animeta will sign deals with digital content creators and help them grow their communities and maximise earnings across multiple social media platforms, and provide customised brand solutions via a proprietary AI-based self-service creator tech platform.
The company offers financial help, data analytics, business intelligence, content and brand strategy, creative supervision, social media and public relation expertise, and result-oriented and data-driven brand campaigns to content creators.
“We have been working on the platform for six months," Mehta said. “We have 15 members in our team, and will scale up to 50 in six months. Rajesh and Sameer’s support will help us scale up our vision of tapping into the creator economy. We will not only partner with the creators, but will also invest in them and make them stronger brands."
Mehta is credited with turning around Cosmos-Maya into one of India’s largest animation companies, helping build original Indian IPs at scale as well as expanding its YouTube network with over 90 million subscribers across 35 channels.
He also played a key role in getting private equity investors into the Indian animation business, first with Emerald Media and later with TPG affiliate NewQuest Capital Partners.
“My association with Anish goes back to when we invested in Cosmos-Maya. I decided to back him seeing his vision," said Kamat who invested in Animeta in personal capacity.
“In the last few years, we’ve seen a shift that has put the spotlight on smart, commercially savvy content creators who’ve emerged as businesses to reckon with by themselves. Today, the global creator economy is worth more than $100 billion on the back of social media users. While the user base continues to increase rapidly, the revenues are estimated to increase at a staggering CAGR of 35% through 2024," Kamat added.
Manchanda added that he is a true believer in the fact that content is playing a very important role in today’s digital world. “I am confident that Animeta will be a game changer for content creators and bring about the scalable transformation which is essential for the Indian creator economy," he said.
Animeta, Mehta said, is in the final stages of signing 50 creators to start with.
“Today, India has over 100 million content creators, but only 150,000 of them are able to meaningfully monetise. Our plan is to get nano, micro and mega-creators and exponentially increase their monetisation potential. And all this via AI-backed tech platform," Mehta added.
As part of the business model, Animeta will co-own the IP with the content creators and exploit the content across platforms, and across short-and long-formats.