Will not grow old, people will not collapse
Virtual idols broke the circle and capital poured into the 100 billion track
Recently, at the 9th anniversary birthday party of Luo Tianyi, many fans gathered from all over the world to Shanghai.
They cherished Luo Tianyi's songs, shouting "daughter" and "baby" in the audience...and they also lingered after the birthday party.
The Red Star Capital Bureau learned that Luo Tianyi is the world's first VOCALOID Chinese voice library and avatar based on Yamaha's VOCALOID3 speech synthesis engine.
Luo Tianyi has a huge fan base and is the first virtual singer in China to achieve profitability.
With unique appearance and perfect human settings, carefully crafted virtual people gradually enter the real world: from Dingliu Luotianyi to the brand's own virtual people, and then to various virtual anchors on social media...
At the same time, more and more companies and capital have entered the virtual human race track.
Recently, the virtual human head company Next World Culture announced that it has recently completed a $5 million A round of financing. The founding partner CCV led the investment, and the old shareholder Shunwei Capital followed the investment.
For capital, "virtual people" may become a golden outlet.
Virtual singers, virtual anchors and virtual people enter the public eye
In November 2016, the Japanese virtual anchor Kizuna AI released the first video on social media, and began live broadcast activities thereafter, virtual idols gradually entered people’s lives; Luo Tianyi appeared on the Spring Festival Gala in 2021 On the stage, virtual idols are gradually entering the mainstream view from the two-dimensional circle.
In recent years, many artists have their own virtual images, which are mainly divided into iconic images and real-life images.
For example, Andy Lau's "Anjo" and "Black Boy" were born as early as 2007. They are cartoon images created by Andy Lau himself; in a TV New Year's Eve party in 2020, Huang Zitao and his own two-dimensional image Tao Siman staged In a dance battle, anime characters compete with real people on the same stage; the avatar "Dilly Lengba" launched by the popular actress Dilraba, and the work "Lengba ACTION" adapted from her real daily life, also won a lot of attention. High attention...
"Virtual idols are produced through painting, animation, CG, etc., performing performance activities in virtual or real scenes such as the Internet, but they do not exist in physical form themselves. They are character images created entirely through technical means. "Chengdu Jiguangshe Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jiguangshe Technology), which has settled in more than 100 virtual anchors, is a newly established virtual anchor full-industry chain service provider. The relevant person in charge of Jiguangshe Technology told the Red Star Capital Bureau: "Currently, the virtual Idols are mainly used in animation production, game development, live performances, AR concerts, and live streaming goods."
Virtual idols with labels such as "no gossip", "personal design will not collapse", and "perfectionism" have gradually entered the public's field of vision.
Internet giants have entered the virtual idol track
On July 19, 2021, Beijing Lehua Yuanyu Culture Communication Co., Ltd. has a business change message, adding Zhejiang Dongyang Alibaba Pictures Co., Ltd. and ByteDance related company Beijing Quantum Jump Technology Co., Ltd. as shareholders , This has caused a lot of attention in the industry.
The focus of this investment is on the virtual idol group A-SOUL.
On November 23, 2020, Lehua Entertainment released a preview of the first group of A-SOUL, announcing that it will launch its first virtual idol girl group. Its members are different in appearance and personality from Xiangwan (Ava) and Bella (Bella). Consisting of 5 people.
On December 2, 2020, A-SOUL released the group’s first single "Quiet". In just a few months, the number of fans on the entire network exceeded three million.
Currently, big Internet companies such as Byte, Ali, NetEase, and Tencent have all entered the virtual idol track.
The latest data shows that the virtual idol track has won the favor of capital.
The head virtual idol company Wanxiang Culture received millions of dollars in financing from SIG Heiner Asia in March this year; Chengdu's Yishiqi also received angel round financing from Refine Capital and Force Venture Capital.
The influx of capital has made the virtual idols, which were originally only the product of the niche culture of the second dimension, approached the multi-dimensional and provided more dimensional commercial realization possibilities.
Recently, iiMedia Consulting released the "2021 China Virtual Idol Industry Development and Netizen Survey Research Report". The report shows that China's virtual idol industry has gradually entered development in an environment where the demand for mass entertainment continues to grow and the network, video and audio technologies continue to iterate. Peak period.
According to iiMedia Consulting's data, the scale of China's virtual idol core industry will be 3.46 billion yuan in 2020, an increase of 70.3% year-on-year, and it is expected to reach 6.22 billion yuan in 2021.
With the continuous discovery of commercial value, virtual idols are connected with more and more industries, and their ability to drive the development of surrounding industries has become stronger.
The size of the virtual idol peripheral market in 2020 is 64.56 billion yuan, and it is expected to grow to 107.49 billion yuan in 2021.
Less business scenarios
Virtual idols face difficulties in realizing
"At this stage, for example, if a person makes a debut from a talent show on iQiyi or Tencent, he can immediately go to make movies, variety shows, or release records, and have online and offline meetings. But virtual idols do not have so many scenes. To achieve it, I think the real explosion of virtual humans is when enough virtual entertainment scenes appear, whether online or offline.” Nextworld Culture CEO Chen Yan analyzed to the Red Star Capital Bureau, “There is no pull in the scene. Before opening, it is difficult to create a virtual idol that everyone likes or recognizes. On the contrary, it is easier to create opportunities in the segmented field."
In addition to the scene problem, virtual idols are currently more oriented towards audiences in the Z era. How long does it take to truly reach the full popularity of the society?
Lu Yuxiang, founding partner of The Force Ventures, said: "The process is definitely needed. The virtual idol industry is indeed relatively new now, but it should develop very quickly."
Lu Yuxiang believes that virtual idols are not just in demand, and there are fewer business scenarios for virtual idols.
"But this is gradually getting better. Now many traditional industries are also using virtual people to advertise, such as automobiles, beauty and other industries, and some spokespersons have changed from traditional stars to virtual idols." At the same time, Lu Yuxiang judged, Real people and virtual people will be a trend of coexistence.
The product will be affected if the live spokesperson has a bit of negative news.
The output of virtual humans is a bit slower, but there is no negative side, and it is easy to control.
When talking about the business logic of virtual idols, Chen Yan, CEO of NextWorld Culture, said: "In the entire track, the dividends for this year and last year are very clear."
"In general, this year is indeed a very rewarding year for the entire virtual idol track or virtual human track. More and more brands are willing to step down to develop their own brand avatars. Next-generation culture helps Huaxizi, I DO have created their own brand avatars. At the same time, many brands will choose digital IP like Ling Ling to cooperate, such as Tesla, Nai Xue's tea, and Peacebird. We have cooperated many times. "
The relevant person in charge of Aurora News told the Red Star Capital Bureau: “Although the number of entrants in the domestic virtual idol industry has increased sharply, virtual idol labels with high influence and absolute appeal have not yet taken shape. For those waiting for entry, There are still many opportunities."
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter Xu Yuan Fei Chenghong