With An Eye on Angry Birds in China, An Animated Orange Raccoon Gets Funding

A-Li has gone from cartoons to merchandising. The next stop will be mobile and social gaming.

A-Li is a cutesy orange raccoon that lives in Dream City, loves grapefruit, and is best friends with Big Bear. Look how adorable he is. Don’t worry: I haven’t lost my marbles in my blogger’s basement. A-Li (pronounced as “Ali”) is the creation of Beijing-based animation studio Dream City, which has just secured 10 million RMB ($1.57 million) in funding from GGV Capital. In addition, GGV’s Jenny Lee – recently named in a Forbes list of of the five most powerful female VCs – will join the Dream City board of directors.

Admitedly, animations studios are not within our usual remit. But Dream City has digital content and image licensing deals with the likes of Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) and Tencent (HKG:0700), and will soon make move into apps and mobile gaming. This makes Dream City very much a tech startup in the same manner that Rovio Mobile, makers of Angry Birds, has gone the other way into becoming an entertainment company with its own cartoons and merchandising.

The A-Li character – “li” is Chinese for “raccoon” – is the lead character from the young animation studio which started up in 2009. A-Li can already be found all over the Chinese web, such as in the animated GIF you see on the right, the likes of which have been licensed to Tencent for use in its QQ instant-messenger. As for merchandising, the studio has its own official Tmall online store. In total, Chinese media reports that there are 300 official A-Li products on the market, covering everything from stationary to luggage.

The apparent hope – backed up by this significant funding round – is that A-Li can be “China’s Angry Birds” if it can successfully make the leap from cartoon and plush toys to social gaming. After all, the evolution of a cult character can go both ways, from the big screen to the smartphone game, and vice-versa.

But gaming success is far from assured. China’s last home-grown animation that went big with the kids was, if I remember correctly, Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, which had a pretty conventional movie-and-merch trajectory. But, this time around, and with a different cast of cutesy animals, A-Li has the Angry Birds to guide him.

Get more A-Li downloads and info at his Dream City homepage.

[Source: ChinaVenture – article in Chinese]