INKR, a digital comics platform, crosses cultural and language barriers. It allows creators to reach global audiences through its proprietary localization technology. The company, which was previously self-funded, announced today that it raised $3.1 million in preSeries A funding from Monks Hill Ventures. This included participation by Stu Levy, founder of manga distributor TokyoPop, and David Do, managing director of VI Management.INKR is headquartered in Singapore and has an office in Ho Chi Minh City. It was founded by Ken Luong Khoa Nguyen, Hieu Tran, and Ken Luong in 2019. According to the company, it has seen a 200% increase in monthly users since its launch in October 2020. The company currently has over 800 titles, which include manga, webtoons, and graphic novels.Luong, INKRs CEO told TechCrunch the platform will initially focus on translated comics from major global publishers but plans to expand to smaller and indie creators by 2022.The core of INKRs platform lies in its localization technology. According to the company, this technology reduces the time required to prepare comics for different markets. It takes just hours instead of days.Localization of comics is more than translation. This is a tedious process that involves many people.Publishers must also consider differences in comic styles, such as American comics, Japanese manga, Chinese manga, Korean manga, and Chinese manhua. Comics can also be laid out page by page or used vertical scrolling. Some languages are read from left-to-right, while others go from right and left.Luong claims that INKR's AI engine, INKR ComicsVision, can recognize various formats and elements in a comic page. This includes text, dialogue and characters as well as backgrounds, panels, facial expressions and backgrounds. INKR Localize is a tool that allows human translators to quickly deliver precise translations by automating tasks such as text transcription, vocabulary suggestions, and typesetting.INKR offers browser-based collaboration software for localization, as teams often include people from different places. It supports translations from Japanese-English, Korean English, and Chinese-English languages. There are plans to expand the platform. Kuaikan Manhua, Mr. Blue and others have used INKR for thousands of comic pages from Chinese and Korean to English.INKR offers content creators a variety of monetization options, including subscription fees, ad-supported and pay-per-chapter. Luong explains that the platform analyses content to determine which model will yield the best earnings for publishers and shares a portion of the revenue.INKR is competing for attention with other digital comics platforms such as Amazon-owned Comixology or Webtoon, a publishing portal run by Naver Corporation.Luong stated that INKR's competitive advantages are the variety of comics it offers and its affordability. It also invested in data- and AI-based technology before launching. Users get personalized recommendations based upon their reading habits, and publishers have access to analytics that track the performance of titles based on consumption trends.Justin Nguyen, Monks Hill Ventures' general partner, stated that INKRs AI-driven platform addresses the needs of creators and publishers. It allows them to globallocalize for multiple languages quickly and economically. They also help them increase their reach and readership via analytics and personalized feeds. We are looking forward to working with them to meet the growing demand for translated comics worldwide.
