Beijing Cishi Culture Media

中文摘要 ↓

Chinese name

次世文化

Pinyin

Cìshì Wénhuà

Registered name

北京次世文化传媒有限公司

Unified Social Credit Code

91110105MA009LQC7F registered in Beijing 北京

Weibo

6366314112

Brand ambassadors and short drama

Next Generation Culture (次世文化), registered as Beijing Cishi Culture Media (北京次世文化传媒有限公司), is a Beijing virtual-human studio founded in November 2016 by Chen Yan (陈燕). It began as a cross-dimensional IP company: in 2018 it produced Xiyin Jianghu (《戏隐江湖》), billed as China’s first series mixing live action and animation, directed by Zou Siwei (邹四维).

From 2018 it turned to virtual humans. It created celebrity digital doubles, among them Dili Lengba (迪丽冷巴) for the actress Dilraba (迪丽热巴) and Taosiman (韬斯曼) for Huang Zitao (黄子韬), the latter co-developed with his company Longtao Entertainment (龙韬娱乐) (GeekPark, 2021). In May 2020 it launched the Chinese-style virtual idol and influencer Ling (翎) with Xmov (魔珐科技); in January 2021 Ling became the first virtual idol to perform on a CCTV stage. Other characters from the studio include the hyper-real figures Purple and NAND.

Investors followed the virtual-human boom. In July 2021 the company raised a US$5 million Series A led by CCV with Shunwei following, in October 2021 an A+ round led by NetEase, and on 15 February 2022 an A3 round invested in solely by Sequoia China (Beijing Business Today), to build new virtual-human IP and upgrade its existing characters. Chen Yan was named to Fortune China’s 40 under 40 in 2022.

Its next product, VBS Niren (拟人), shifted from making virtual people for stars and brands to giving ordinary users their own digital identities. Chen described it as a user digital-identity system and open ecosystem, later offered as an app.