In the sea of the web and innovation, there are also fish that sail against the current. It is the example of «Kirke»the startup made in Brescia that wants to become safe haven for artists and users of the entertainment world. In particular for the anime, manga and webtoon sectors, capable of accumulating together around 50 billion euros of market value in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate estimated between 9% and 37% by 2030 (data « Gvr”).
The idea, which started in September last year in Valentina Todeschi and Marco Rizzatorespectively CEO and CTO of the group, is to create a social network marketplace that aims to enhance the work of artists, without accepting content generated by artificial intelligence.
An ambitious project, strongly detached from contemporary trends appearing at the AI window, which won at the beginning of 2024 the «Tech4you» call (NextGenerationEu, Pnrr and Mur), worth an incubation period with «Entopan Innovation» and the mentoring of Augusto Coppola. And which also received the European «Seal of excellence» certificate.
The functionalities
Kirke’s web platform offers several spaces where illustrators can publish their works, divided based on the number of interactions received or the time of publication, so that we can support all artists equally. Furthermore, in the coming months the «Commission» and «Shop» sections will be made operational, with which designers will be able to sell their products without risk of scams with advance payments or based on the state of progress.
The numbers
«In January, following the Tech4you Demodays, lOur startup was valued at 5 million euros. In the beginning the development costs were estimated at 60 thousand euros, but we managed to carry out the project independently, only with internal resources – comments Todeschi, the girl from Brescia who is the face of Kirke -. Only through word of mouth and a few weeks after the release of the beta version, we have already reached thousands of users around the world and hundreds of thousands of page accesses.”
Future
Kirke’s next step is to validate its business model, in order to then obtain the first financing. «We would appreciate the participation of business angels because it would allow us to speed up the process. However, we are structured so you can continue even in the absence of support and this is a positive sign for a startup” comments Todeschi. The “beta testing” activities began in March and the startup should also begin to operate economically by the end of the year.
