The Shanghai Hippo Culture and Technology Corp., Ltd ("Hippo") is a culture and technology-based enterprise involved in digital content production and operation, simulation, the design and development of interactive multimedia experiences, the production and publication of TV programmes and films, and channel development. Supported by a comprehensive foundation from the digital TV and film industry, the company can now offer frame creation and production for TV programmes and films. It has strong R&D capacity based on computer graphics, which can be extended to the development and design of virtual reality (VR), virtual simulation (VS), etc.
Over the years, Hippo has had many achievements in production and publishing for film and TV, both at home and overseas. In 2010, Hippo created China's first 3D sci-fi film Animen 1, which performed extremely well at the box office, grossing RMB 8.30 million. In November 2011, Animen 2 won the "Best Animated Film" award at the American Film Market (AFM); meanwhile it carried out a successful pre-sale campaign, obtaining a guaranteed fee for the pre-sale rights to the film of more than USD 100,000. Hippo's original animated film Farm House 81 was released in 2013, grossing nearly RMB 30 million at the box office in China, a new record for a home-grown animated film produced by a non-established studio. In 2014, its original 3D animated film Jungle Master reached 7th place on the weekly box office chart in South Korea. This year, Hippo is planning to enter and expand the Ukraine and Vietnam markets, in an effort to bring its original 3D animated films to more countries and regions.
As well as shaking up the production and publishing of animated TV series and films, Hippo has also launched an offline experience store — Volo Graphic. The store uses Hippo's own VR/VS games to go beyond the limits of physical space, providing customers with a realistic and immersive gaming experience. Spaces for taking pictures with 3D images have been set aside in the store to meet the demands of different customers.
In future, Hippo will implement the development strategy of operating major IP titles along the entire industry chain, through the creation and marketing of original animated TV series and films. It will seek to establish alliances for the production, promotion and publishing of animated products, organise specialised international development teams, and build an ecosystem of digital entertainment covering "technology – services – products". It will encourage various platforms to leverage their resource advantages to jointly form a complete closed-loop of content production, consisting of "project incubation – digital content production – promotion and publishing of TV series and films – end market – interactive experience", so that audiences at home and abroad can enjoy the benefits of pan-entertainment services.