Photo: (From left to right) Thet Paing Kha, Joosk CEO; Soe Moe Kyaw Oo, Nest Tech Managing Partner; Hitoshi Ikeya, EME Investment Director; and Zeyah Htet, Joosk CSO
Nest Tech VN has led a six figure equity investment into the Myanmar’s leading animation company, Joosk Studio. EME, who invested into Joosk last year joined the round.
Joosk Studio is a creative digital animation agency founded and run by artists Thet Paing Kha and Zeyar Htet. Joosk has worked with companies including Facebook, CB Bank and Telenor as well as NGOs, UN agencies and the World Bank Group. In September 2019, Joosk’s proprietary animation series, Sassy Bound, won the company the Myanmar Influencer of the Year Award for Art and Design. Joosk is doubling down on its popular comic series and producing Sassy Bound The Movie, while continuing to grow its core agency business. Joosk’s debut into cinema will bring Myanmar’s first feature length animation to viewers across the country.
Nest Tech VN’s Managing Partner, Soe Moe Kyaw Oo has invested in several Myanmar startups, with this investment into Joosk marking the fifth company in the Nest Tech VN Myanmar portfolio. Soe Moe said, “Joosk have created a great business, serving high profile brands with their unique and funny animation. We’re excited to be a part of this movie, as well as helping Joosk to continue to build their creative agency”.
EME Myanmar are also participating in this round, marking their second investment into Joosk Studio. EME’s Investment Director, Hitoshi Ikeya, said, “we’ve loved working with Joosk and we’re pleased to be able to continue to help them innovate and bring creative content to Myanmar companies and consumers alike.”
Q&A with Thet Paing Kha, CEO of Joosk Studio
What does this latest round of investment mean to Joosk Studio?
At Joosk, we use humour and illustration to reach audiences and share messages. We’ve been running our Facebook comic series alongside our agency work for a while now and this latest investment lets us develop that side of the company to bring our audience something bigger than they’ve ever seen before.
While everyone is very excited and already working very hard on the movie, we’re also continuing to find exciting new ways to serve our business customers. We’re fortunate enough to work on interesting projects – both for NGOs and private companies and we see a lot of synergy between the movie and our core business.
Creativity seems to be such an important part of what Joosk does, how does taking on new investment affect that?
We’re very lucky that our current investors, EME, have always given us 100% freedom when it comes to any remotely creative decisions. When we met with Ko Soe Moe from Nest Tech VN we got the same feeling and had many casual meetings to make sure that we were a fit for each other. We also see that Nest Tech have a lot of digital skills that could help Joosk with digital merchandising and discovering new ways to entertain our audience outside of traditional approaches.
When’s the film coming out and what’s it going to be about?
Sassy Bound The Movie will be in theatres nationwide sometime in 2021. For now that’s all the information we’re sharing I’m afraid, but we’ll be releasing some clues and hints in the coming months! One thing is for certain, if you’ve ever enjoyed anything we’ve made before, we’ve got a very good feeling you’re going to love what we’ve got coming!