Agnes Kozera and David Kierzkowski, the co-founders of podcast sponsorship marketplace Podcorn, today unveiled their new app—Storiaversea short-form entertainment platform that offers a multi-format reading experience by combining animated video and written content.
Available on iOS and Android devices, Storiaverse is aimed at graphic novel readers and adult animation fans who want to discover original stories in short animated form.
“Our mission is to make Storiaverse the biggest storytelling platform and make reading more immersive and engaging,” Kozera, who also founded YouTube marketing platform FameBit (which was acquired by Google in 2016), told TechCrunch.
“We believe our format not only serves existing fans of literature and animation, but also has the potential to appeal to a wider audience looking for new forms of entertainment…Even people who shy away from reading because it’s more [visual readers] they can enjoy reading through the patent-pending reading clock format,” he said.
Image Credits: Storiaverse
Storiaverse’s “Read-Watch” format is exactly what it sounds like. Users swipe up on a story to watch a series of animated clips, then tap the screen to enter reading mode. There is also an option to skip the videos if they prefer to read all the chapters first and then come back to watch the animation. Stories range in length from five to 10 minutes.
At launch, Storiaverse offers 25 original titles spanning genres including science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and comedy. Creators who have released stories on the app include animator Josh Ryba, who has contributed to projects such as the Netflix shows “Raised by Wolves” and “One Piece.” Animator Jonathan Fontaine, who has worked on Disney’s Descendants, and writer John M. Floyd, who has been featured in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, among others.
Notably, book publisher HarperCollins is also working with the company to adapt titles such as Madeleine Roux’s Asylum series of horror novels and Joelle Charbonneau’s new Dividing Eden fantasy series. Plus, TikTok star and freelance animator King Science (Science Akbar) collaborates to create an exclusive story on the app.
There are currently over 100 creators working with Storiaverse and over 100 stories in development.
Co-founders Agnes Kozera and David Kierzkowski. Image Credits: Storiaverse
Storiaverse comes at a time when many creators are panicking about the future of TikTok, the ByteDance-owned short-form video app, where many storytellers have built a sizable audience (like King Science and his 13 million followers) and use the platform to showcase their work.
Like TikTok and YouTube Shorts, Storiaverse offers an additional revenue stream for creators.
“There is a huge community of freelance writers who often struggle for recognition and compensation. We believe their content can be revitalized into a more modern format to reach new readers,” Kozera said, adding that Storiaverse compensates both writers and animators for their contributions to the app. “THE [compensation] The fee varies depending on factors such as the length and complexity of the story,” he explained.
The company can also take other pages out of its competitor’s playbooks by introducing advertising, merchandise and subscriptions. Another idea on the table is adding product placement to videos, Kozera told us.
Storiaverse says it has already received thousands of submissions from writers. Creators can apply at Storiaverse’s Website. When writers are accepted, they are connected with an animator who helps bring the words to life.
The company is also creating a creator suite for creators to collaborate with each other, access story performance information and explore “more monetization opportunities,” Kozera said.
Storiaverse has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding led by 500 Global.
