Beauty in Simplicity
Today's featured startup is redefining animated storytelling.
Project Overview
Storiaverse has built what it calls the “next-generation platform for animated storytelling in a bite sized format.”
They've even filed a patent application for this format — a mix of text, images, and short animated clips. Typically, a Storiaverse story can be experienced in 5–10 minutes.
Like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple, the startup also creates "originals" — exclusive stories in their format, published only on their platform.
These original stories are created by external writers and animator-artists, whom the startup actively recruits. Writers can submit their stories, from which the startup's experts select the best ones, while illustrators bring the chosen stories to life.
Behind the scenes, the platform has a dedicated section where writers and artists can collaborate on crafting stories in the Storiaverse format.
The startup promises to pay writers and artists, even though stories are currently free. They are exploring various monetization options — subscriptions, ads, merchandise sales, and even product placement within animated clips.
Storiaverse isn't relying solely on independent creators. They've already secured a deal with major publisher HarperCollins, allowing them to adapt certain books from the publisher's catalog for their platform.
Another source of new stories and audiences is content creators. Bloggers can also publish their own stories on Storiaverse, offering them an additional revenue stream while tapping into the platform's existing audience.
The startup has already signed a deal with King Science, a content creator with 13.4 million TikTok followers and around 800,000 YouTube subscribers.
Founded in 2023, Storiaverse recently raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding.
What's the Gist?
It's not entirely clear what Storiaverse is trying to patent. At its core, this is essentially a modern take on comics or graphic novels, adapted for digital consumption with animated elements instead of static images.
That being said, the resemblance to comics isn't a bad thing.
Comic book sales — both digital and print — have hovered around $1 billion annually in North America. However, during the pandemic in 2021, sales doubled, surpassing $2 billion. Interestingly, in 2022, sales didn't drop but continued to grow from this new baseline.
In other words, people still love stories told through words and pictures. Or, in Storiaverse's case, words and videos. This isn't surprising — people consume short-form visual stories in massive quantities on social media every day.
The difference? Social media content is mostly amateur. Storiaverse aims to ride this trend by establishing a "publishing house" that exclusively features professionally written and illustrated short stories.
However, going digital offers more than just animated images. Stories themselves can be made "interactive" — allowing readers to influence how a story unfolds based on their choices. This turns passive storytelling into an interactive experience, almost like a game.
This is exactly what startup Dorian offers — a platform that allows writers to turn their stories into games within 1–5 days. The games are quite basic, but then again, so are comics and most social media stories.
With the surge in interest in comics and graphic narratives, Dorian raised an additional $14 million in 2022, bringing total funding to $19.3 million.
At the same time, platforms that publish traditional comics in digital format are gaining traction. Take Zestworld, for instance — it raised $9.8 million in its first funding round in 2022.
The text-visual format isn't limited to fiction. Startup RocaNews applied it to news stories, initially publishing them on Instagram before launching their own news app. In 2022, they secured $4.4 million in their first funding round.
Key Takeaways
The main takeaway? All the stories published by these startups are relatively "simple" 😉
And that means AI is already capable of illustrating them at today's tech level. It can also generate coherent narratives and even interactive branching storylines based on a given plot.
Startup Yeti Confident Kids has already leveraged this — they built an app that generates simple educational games for kids aged 3–8. For this audience, basic animation and gameplay are more than enough. They raised $5.3 million in their first funding round.
So, the broader trend is heading toward a "new comics" market — short digital stories in a text-visual format that can be either linear or interactive.
The most inefficient way to enter this market? Start creating your own stories from scratch. While you might become a millionaire blogger, it's not exactly scalable.
A much more scalable approach? Building AI-powered platforms that enable others to quickly and easily create stories in this format.
Key priorities:
Simplified input — Users should be able to submit a basic plot, and AI should expand it into a compelling story.
Flexible export options — Stories shouldn't be locked to a single platform. Instead, they should be easily adaptable for social media formats, avoiding the need to drive traffic to a standalone website.
If someone builds a prototype that can turn Dark Side posts or FastFounder articles into these kinds of stories, I'd be more than happy to test it.
And I'm probably not the only one. Meaning, the market for platforms that generate these kinds of stories could be huge and ripe for the taking.
Company info:
Storiaverse
Website: https://www.storiaverse.com/
Last funding round: $2.5 million, 23.04.2024
Total funds raised: $2.5 million after 1 round