Alpha Animation Acquires Chinese Digital Comics Platform

QUINCY: Toy developer and animation studio Guangdong Alpha Animation and Culture Company has acquired a 100 percent stake in Chinese comics platform U17.com, a move that's being called the biggest acquisition deal in Chinese animation history.

The merger, which has been valued at $141 million, will incorporate U17.com into Alpha’s Anime, Comic and Games (ACG) platform. The U17.com website brings an average of 40 million hits a day, with close to 7 million registered users and over 40,000 comics created by 20,000 cartoonists. Alpha is the parent company of Auldey Toys North America, which distributes Sky Rover Voice Command Helicopter and Wave Racers, and produces the children’s animated TV show Super Wings.

Additionally, U17.com unveiled a new business plan targeting an increase in the number of professional comics and cartoonists on the platform by tenfold while improving the revenue-sharing scheme for its base of freelance authors.

“For Alpha, partnering with U17.com is like capturing China’s largest goldmine of animation IPs,” said Chen Derong, the president of Alpha’s Interactive Entertainment division. “U17.com is a rare gem in the industry with three distinguishing features: originality, platform-centeredness and benchmark status.”

“[U17.com is] a gathering place for a countless number of hopeful and aspiring creators; it’s a place where the desire for freedom and the dreams of teenage years merge and grow,” said Zhou Jingqi, the founder of U17.com. “We have been approached by many big companies in the past two years for buying our shares or merger and acquisition deals. There are film and television groups, game associations, and other industry heavyweights. But we turned them away, for we believe U17.com needs a partner that truly appreciates the values of comics and animations and that, to us, was Alpha.”