Japanese virtual performer startup COVER has raised 700 million yen

The real entertainment industry is in recession due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the virtual entertainment industry is booming and the news of funding is continuous.

See also:
Japanese VR performance platform VARK has raised 200 million yen

Japanese virtual performer startup COVER has raised a total of 700 million yen from venture capitalists and individual investors. As a result, their cumulative amount raised to about 1 billion yen.

They are startups of virtual performers(VTuber). Under their umbrella are women's VTuber group Hololive, men's VTuber group Holostars, and the virtual music label Inonaka Music.
In particular, they have recently been focusing on overseas expansion, starting activities in China's video sharing service Bilibili in January 2019, and starting a VTuber business in China in September 2019. They also started the VTuber business in Indonesia in April 2020 and are currently holding a VTuber audition in the English-speaking world.

See also:
Japanese VTuber Productions will expand into the English-speaking world

Their most popular VTuber Tokino-Sora. She debuted in September 2017 and their business started.

Now they have 50 VTubers, and the total number of YouTube and Bilibili fans has exceeded 15 million.

With the funds raised this time, they will strengthen VTubers support, further accelerate VTuber business overseas such as English-speaking countries, and develop new services of XR such as virtual show platform.

The world's largest VR creative festival Virtual Market 4 got over 500,000 visitors

Currently, all real-life events have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, virtual world events are thriving.
Japanese VR startup HIKKY announced that the VR creative festival Virtual Market 4 they have been holding since April 29 got more than 500,000 visitors. It will be held until May 10, and they expect to eventually reach one million visitors.

Virtual Market is a creative festival in the VR world. 43 companies and 1400 general creators are exhibiting, and various virtual goods made by them are on sale. In addition, companies are promoting their real products in a virtual world. It's like a real trade show, but because it's a virtual world, the venues are ornately decorated.

See also:
The postponed movie Black Widow will participate in the VR Creative Festival

At this event, exhibitors and visitors can buy and sell various virtual goods, real clothes, PCs, etc. They can also ride the vehicles, watch the videos, walk the cities and enjoy communication. 
This is an event sponsored by a Japanese company, but users from various countries as well as Japan are visiting here. According to them, visitors say, "I feel as if I'm running around outdoors," "I can enjoy safely in a virtual world even under recent circumstances."

Exhibitors also said, "In the virtual world, customers can receive services from their homes without being affected by the coronavirus, and products are purchased." "Feedback not only from Japan but also from overseas users I was able to get it and felt the potential for a new market."

Below are the major companies exhibiting.

Audi Japan:

Visitors can test drive the virtual version of the electric car e-tron.

High-end department store Mitsukoshi

Fashion brand WEGO

Movie company TOHO Cinemas

Convenience store Seven-Eleven

Game company Square Enix

Virtual Market 4 is being held on VRChat and Virtual Cast until May 10.

Way to participate:
https://www.v-market.work/v4/access

New communication between artists and fans

Entertainment is one of the industries most affected by the spread of coronaviruses, and artists are trying to keep in touch with their fans. Bitfan, released by SKIYAKI is a mobile application that allows artists to easily create their own media for fans.

bitfan is an artist support platform with a monthly membership function and comment charge function. It can show timelines that aggregates the accounts of social networking services such as the artists' Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook pages. Also, it has automatic translation functions, it can support multiple languages.
 The platform has only artists and their fans, so there's no noise such as anti-comments and fans can check out their favorite artists' information in a cozy community. Also, when fans check out the artists' contents, play tunes in Spotify, or buy "hearts" and post to the contents, they accumulate as points. And Fans can redeem the points that they have accumulated through the support activities of the artists for various benefits.
In addition, artists can sell their official merchandise and tickets here, so they can use it even after the coronavirus pandemic is over. The application is free to download(iOS/Android).

Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science opened VR museum

Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science opened VR museum "THE WILDLIFE MUSEUM" to displaying 3D models of valuable stuffed mammals.

The stuffed mammals they carry are very popular, and the hall where they are exhibited is well received by many visitors. Most of these stuffed animals were donated to them by Watson T. Yoshimoto(1909～2004), a Japanese American businessman in Hawaii. There are about 400 of these, so all of them cannot be displayed, and they are usually kept in the specimen storage and are not open to the public.

Nowadays, they are also temporarily closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the popular stuffed animals' hall is closed. So they develop a VR museum on VR platform "STYLY" of Psychic VR Lab. The exterior of the VR Museum is a design that reproduces the “WILD LIFE MUSEUM” that Yoshimoto built in Hawaii at his own expense in 1992.

However, the inside of the VR Museum is a magnificent natural landscape, where 24 stuffed animals are displayed. The stuffed animals are made by 3D scanning and you can watch it from any angle. It would be fun to watch with a flashlight in night mode. This is a viewing method that is impossible in a real museum. Of course, captions are attached to each stuffed animal.

You can browse THE WILDLIFE MUSEUM on PC web browsers or VR head mounted displays (Oculus Rift · Rift S / HTC VIVE / Oculus Quest).

Japanese VR performance platform VARK has raised 200 million yen

Japanese VR performance platform VARK has raised 200 million yen in an investment round led by venture capital ANRI.

VARK is a platform for virtual artists to hold shows and is like a VR club. It supports Oculus Quest, Oculus Go and PlayStation VR, and the application is free to download. Every time the show is held, fans of the virtual artists will purchase virtual tickets and enter the venue of the VR world just like a real show. They held first show on Christmas Eve 2018 and have held shows for various virtual artists so far. Recently, musicals have also been performed.



They have also begun to support real-life artists who have been unable to hold shows due to the coronavirus pandemic. So far, they have held shows of virtual artists, but in the future they want to virtualize real artists and bring them to the VR world.
The funds they raised will focus on developing new features and recruiting new talent.