Xross Road, a Web3 startup developing infrastructure for the next generation of IP creation and distribution, announced that it has raised up to a total of $1.5 million in a pre-seed funding.
The Tokyo company will use the money to accelerate development of its core platform and its AI-powered manga creation tool, Hanasee.
Xross Road also announced the launch of the closed beta version of Hanasee opening applications for early access starting today. The round was co-led by Arbitrum Gaming Ventures and Decima Fund, with participation from Taisu Ventures, Baboon VC, and other investors.
“The IP industry holds countless great stories that remain undiscovered. Hannasee, through the collaboration of multiple specialized AI agents, makes professional-quality manga production accessible to everyone. We see this not just as a tool, but as infrastructure that will ensure creators are justly rewarded and enable companies to efficiently identify their next hit IP,” said Yosuke Utsumi, CEO, Xross Road, in a statement.
Asked for the inspiration for starting it, the company said, “As a company within the TV Asahi Group, we have long been involved in the IP and gaming industries. Today, the anime market continues to grow each year, driven by many hit titles from Japan. However, we believe the market still does not fully reflect the true size of global demand. In other words, the supply of IP is insufficient relative to the market. This is largely because most IP has historically been created through manual processes.”
Solving fragmentation and unlocking new IP pathways
The current Intellectual Property (IP) industry, spanning novels, manga, production committees, and distribution, is highly fragmented. This fragmentation creates significant time and cost barriers that prevent promising stories from being adapted into formats like manga or anime.
Xross Road addresses this challenge with its AI-agent-based manga creation engine, Hanasee, which rapidly transforms undiscovered novels or screenplays into high-quality manga.
The IPs visualized through Hanasee will be integrated into Xross Road’s core infrastructure, enabling seamless content distribution, fair monetization opportunities, and efficient market testing and multi-format expansion of original IP.
Hanasee: A manga engine powered by agents, trained by professionals
Hanasee is a proprietary manga generation system trained on the structural logic of professional creators. It is designed to empower novelists and scriptwriters, enabling them to visualize their stories as high-quality manga without needing drawing skills. The system uses specialized AI agents for different stages: illustration, scripting, and panel layout. Its layered, isolated editing tool overcomes common consistency issues found in general image generation AI, thereby enabling the creation of coherent, long-form manga.
Key Features:
- Professionally Supervised Training Architecture: Unlike generic models, Hanasee’s agents are rigorously fine-tuned by active manga artists. This proprietary “human-in-the-loop” training structure ensures the AI internalizes the nuanced logic of professional storytelling, composition, and emotional expression unique to the expertise of professional creators.
- Specialized Multi-Agent System: Dedicated AI agents for illustration, story composition, and layout coordination mimic professional production workflows, ensuring high structural quality and character consistency.
- Complete Character and World Consistency: Precision control features ensure character appearance, costumes, and environment settings remain consistent across every panel and page break.
- Pro-Quality Composition and Pacing: The AI calculates manga-specific principles like “visual guidance” and “page turn rhythm,” automatically suggesting readable and immersive panel layouts.
- Dialogue-Based Creative Control: Creators interact directly with the AI agents to guide the story direction and refine details, achieving their intended creative vision.
Future outlook: Content monetization and business collaboration
Xross Road is committed to building an ecosystem where generated content is fairly valued and widely distributed.
- Transparent Monetization: Manga created with Hanasee will eventually be eligible for public release and sale on the Xross Road platform. A blockchain-based rights management system ensuring transparent revenue sharing is planned to launch in early 2026.
- IP Expansion and Business Partnership: Hanasee offers IP holders (novelists, studios, etc.) a new, cost-effective, and rapid option to adapt their original IP into manga for market testing and multi-format expansion. Xross Road is actively seeking partnerships and conducting pilot programs to expand monetization models for the Manga and anime industry.
Investor and executive comments
“Connecting fans directly to bluechip anime, Manga, and other entertainment IP has always been difficult. Supply side complexities from major IP holders and shifting consumer demand requires a team with both deep experience working with the top creative teams and a strong connection to fan communities,” said Dan Peng, Founding Partner, Arbitrum Gaming Ventures, in a statement. “In Hanasee, Xross Road and TV Asahi have created a powerful platform that gives fans a home base for Manga and anime content while simultaneously working with IP holders to ideate and fund new products across gaming, merchandise, and content. With connections to the best anime content in the world, we believe that Yosuke and his team can reimagine the fan experience for one of the fastest growing categories of entertainment.”
“After working closely with the Xross Road team for months, it’s clear they have a deep understanding of anime culture and where it can go next,” said Kiet Fong, APAC Gaming Partnership Lead, Offchain Labs, in a statement. “Xross Road expands anime beyond watching into games, sticker packs, merchandise, and new content formats, while Hannasee empowers fans themselves to become the next generation of creators. Backed by the TV Asahi Group, they are uniquely positioned to turn grassroots creativity into the next wave of global IP.”
Closed Beta Registration and Business Inquiries
- Hannasee Closed Beta Registration (Invitation-Only) The Hanasee Closed Beta is currently available by invitation only. Creators interested in early access are encouraged to pre-register via the form linked here to join the waitlist:Pre-Registration Form: lp.hanasee.com/en
- Business Collaboration Inquiries Companies interested in IP adaptation trials using AI manga or seeking monetization partnerships are encouraged to contact us by email at [email protected]
Xross Road is a co-growth platform backed by tv asahi group, a major Japanese television network. The company aims to reconstruct the next-generation anime IP creation and IP ecosystem by combining Web3 infrastructure, AI-powered content tools, and fan-first incentives. The company has 10 people and it has raised $1.5 million to date.
Regarding blockchain, the company said it has completed a wallet-based user onboarding system using Privy. At the appropriate stage, it plans to implement on-chain user activity data on Arbitrum.