Sorajima

About Sorajima

Sorajima is an entertainment startup founded in February 2019 by high school friends Kojuro Hagihara and Juro Maeda. The company's mission is to create content that defines the 21st century. Hagihara, who previously worked at Mitsubishi Corporation, and Maeda, who was in charge of business development in France for a Japanese food chain, started Sorajima with the shared goal of achieving something significant on a global scale.

The company specializes in the production and distribution of webtoons, which are full-color, vertically scrolling digital comics optimized for smartphones. Sorajima manages the entire production process in-house, from story creation and scripting to illustration and distribution. Their business model focuses on producing a high volume of original content and distributing it globally across various manga applications like LINE Manga and Comico. They have released over 90 titles in 11 countries. Revenue is generated through the sale of their content on these platforms, and they also engage in media mix strategies, adapting their intellectual properties into other formats like live-action dramas and short animations.

Since its inception, Sorajima has achieved significant growth, producing numerous hit titles that have ranked highly on major webtoon platforms. The company has successfully raised a total of $10 million in funding over several rounds, with investors including Z Venture Capital, DBJ Capital, Dentsu Ventures, and KDDI Open Innovation Fund. This funding is being used to increase content production, expand their global reach, and further develop their own manga app, "Sorajima TOON".