*This is a machine-translated text of the original article.
COVER Corporation, a VTuber talent agency, announced about raising funds of 700 million yen through third-party investment, which amounts to company’s cumulative financing of one billion yen.
The company manages Hololive Production, a VTuber live streaming service, which started operations in September 2017 following the debut of SoraCh. or Toki-no-Sora in Japanese.
It manages 50 VTuber artists in Japan and overseas with over 15 million subscribers on its YouTube and Bilibili channels.
The talent agency is also actively expanding overseas. In January 2019, it launched activities in Bilibili Inc, a Chinese video site. It began operating its VTuber agency in China in September 2019, and in Indonesia in April 2019. Currently, it holds VTuber auditions in English-speaking countries.
The funds have been raised to support VTuber members, strengthen overseas VTuber development in English-speaking countries, and develop XR-related services such as virtual live performances.
Going forward, the company aims to further expand this business by strengthening recruitment, improving internal collaboration, and updating to a user-participating virtual live system that can complement live experiences in real space.
Original Text: https://ampmedia.jp/2020/05/07/vtuber-cover/