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Avium has secured a US$2M pre-seed from strategic investors to build an entertainment brand to greenlight original content by the Southeast Asian studios behind Marvel Comics, Valve, Netflix, Prime Video, Tencent and more.

“What catalysed Avium was the realisation that Southeast Asia’s studios deserve a better IP pathway to success. Globally, we already know their work via household gaming and media characters but have yet to give them an industry-recognised path to showcase the full spectrum of their brilliance. Our traction within the Web3 community and oversubscribed fundraise shows the region is ready to find its voice — we’re here to amplify it,” said Ivan Yeo, Co-Founder of Avium.

Ivan previously founded EVOS, the largest esports organisation in Southeast Asia with more than 100 million followers across their talent network.

He co-founded Avium with Nathanael Lim, a blockchain lawyer for global companies including Huobi, Binance, Facebook and Razer. Also brought onto the founding team is Eugene Yap, a former strategy consultant who has delivered projects for the likes of Morgan Stanley and Partners Group.

Avium aims to build Southeast Asia’s largest network of studios by leveraging Web3’s infrastructure. At the centre of its ecosystem is the Founders’ Pass collection, an NFT designed to incentivise the creatives and studios building Avium’s brand. Holding an Avium Founders Pass grants entrepreneurs, creators and artists access to the exclusive community building the Avium brand together with the founding team.

Founders’ Pass holders are considered the founding members of Avium, with rights to build with studios and producers while leveraging on the brand. Avium has also attracted a community of more than 10,000 highly engaged followers across its various social media platforms.

Steven Fong, CEO of Circle Studios, said: “Our ambitions haven’t changed — we still want our content to entertain and impact audiences everywhere — but what has is the way our ideas are greenlit. We see in Avium an opportunity for Southeast Asia to create an entirely new category by leveraging on a community through the infrastructure of Web3. This time, without gatekeepers or production executives, in a way that fairly values the skillsets brought to the table.”

Caravan Studios and Circle Studios are among the renowned regional art and animation companies which have been onboarded to Avium. Caravan has developed entertainment IP for household brands including Marvel Comics, Netflix, Prime Video, Lego, Legends of Runterra and Clash Royale while Circle has developed for Valve, Tencent, Dota and Mobile Legends.

The Avium ecosystem gathers stakeholders across the entire value chain required to create, produce entertainment in all forms of animated content. This includes the end-to-end process from the 1. development of original studio entertainment (via creatives, digital artists, rendering teams, producers and more), 2. creation of media and consumer products (via comics, animations and merchandising), and 3. distribution through media networks (brand distribution via content creators and esports channels).

Chris Sirise, Partner at Saison Capital, said: “Avium’s founding team already has a track record of attracting the best creative talents and rallying fans across the region behind meaningful content. The infrastructure of Web3 helps to bring this all together by incentivising contributions from the community with fair skin in the game.“