Just like your favorite anime, this is the story of a group of twenty-somethings who start off with nothing, travel the world, and eventually secure a global license to develop the official Naruto consumer app.
Sekai, a French startup founded in early 2022, describes itself as a studio that wants to create entertainment experiences with official anime licenses. Unlike Marvel superheroes or the Harry Potter series, the anime and manga industry has had little exposure to other forms of entertainment. Of course, there are fighting video games from Bandai Namco (or Sega, Konami…). Of course, you can buy plastic miniatures. But that's it.
“There are currently 600 million anime fans in the world, and anime is an industry that is completely controlled in Japan. The original manga is created in Japan, the anime is produced in Japan, it's distributed in Japan, and all the merchandise is made in Japan,” Sekai co-founder and CEO Sammy Terrain told TechCrunch.
Still, Bleach, Dragon Ball, Naruto and One Piece are some of the most popular entertainment franchises not just in Japan but of all time, which is why Sekai spent 15 months after its founding negotiating with TV Tokyo to officially acquire the rights, resulting in this deal for Naruto.
So what exactly does the terms of the license agreement allow Sekai to do? Sekai can develop consumer mobile apps using the Naruto characters and storyline. These will be interactive entertainment experiences with social elements. The company is actively developing its first app.
“Right now we're testing a lot of social experiences. We're still in the experimental phase so I can't say exactly what's coming out soon, but basically the goal is to make people feel like a ninja,” Seraine said.
At this point, you might be thinking of Pokemon Go, the mobile game that became an instant viral hit. “Niantic came up with a game that perfectly fit the IP. They made something where the goal was to catch Pokemon, and it worked really well,” said Seraine, explaining that Sekai had also tried to develop its own GPS-based interactive entertainment app. But it didn't work out in the Naruto universe. And while it was an early inspiration, he was adamant that the first Naruto app wouldn't be a Pokemon Go clone.
“The goal is to make people feel like a ninja.”
Sammy Terrain
Given the number of illegal Naruto knockoffs and clones on the App Store and Play Store, it's clear there's a strong interest in bringing Naruto content into apps.
“When we first started testing in Canada, we got blocked by TikTok, Meta, and others because they were saying, 'We don't have a license,' it's an intellectual property violation,” Serane said. “And we said, 'We have a license, here's our contract,' and no one believed us, and it took three months for them to unblock us.”
Sekai's license also allows the company to release digital collections. It also allows the startup to hold in-person events and fan conventions. The five-year license covers the entire world, except for Japan and China.
Sekai doesn't intend to do everything in-house, but the final say on the Naruto license is in their hands. “We are absolute fans, so our goal is to really control how things go and get Shueisha to approve it,” Sekai said. [Naruto’s publishing company]”We don't exclude working with experts in their fields to do certain things,” Teran said.
The startup has already raised 10 million euros ($10.9 million at current exchange rates) from Skycatcher, with participation from 776 (Alexis Ohanian's fund), Cygni, Kima Ventures, Makers Fund, Motier Ventures and New Wave. Voodoo's Laurent Ritter and Alexandre Yazdi, Sorare's Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort, Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda, French rapper Aurell San, and athletes Rudy Gobert and Randall Kolo Mouani are also investors.
Naruto is just the first step, as Sekai does not want to be known only as the “Naruto company.” The company plans to roll out new IP every year. “Why are we called Sekai? Sekai means 'world' in Japanese,” Serein added, emphasizing the team's ambitions.