Bilibili Obtains Ownership of Comic Platform Youyaoqi

Chinese commercial inquiry platform Tianyancha shows that Beijing Siyue Star Network Technology Co., Ltd., an affiliate of Youyaoqi, registered an official change with the country’s Industrial and Commercial Administration. Its original shareholder Guangdong Alpha Animation and Culture Co., Ltd. withdrew, adding Shanghai Magic Electric Information Technology Co., Ltd., an affiliated company of leading video sharing website Bilibili, as a wholly-owning shareholder. The legal representative of the company was changed from Luo Xiaoxing to Zheng Binwei.

On November 19, 2021, according to an announcement at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange issued by Guangdong Alpha Animation and Culture Co., Ltd., Bilibili has wholly acquired its subsidiary company Youyaoqi, an original cartoon platform. The purchase price was 600 million yuan ($94.6 million). According to the announcement, the main business with Youyaoqi includes an original comics website and the operation of a “Youyaoqi Comics” app, the publication of online comics, animation and the operation of comic work copyright.

Founded in 2009, Youyaoqi is one of the earliest online original cartoon platforms in China. By 2021, the firm had accumulated over 32 million users, gathered more than 70,000 original cartoonists and serialized more than 45,000 original comic works. It has gathered top seller works and intellectual properties such as “One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes,” “Rakshasa Street,” “BEE” and “Duan Nao.”

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Bilibili, on the other hand, has been closely related to animation since its establishment. According to iResearch’s 2020 China’s ACG Industry Report, the platform invested in 26 animation-related enterprises in the three years from 2017 through 2019. In addition, animation works adapted from several leading cartoons by Youyaoqi were also broadcast simultaneously on Bilibili, among which the broadcast volume of Rakshasa Street in Bilibili exceeded 300 million in the second season of 2021.

Li Ni, vice chairman and COO of Bilibili, said, “Youyaoqi is home to many popular original works, and we expect these head works will demonstrate in a diversified way in the content ecosystem of Bilibili.”