It’s exciting times for Indian anime fans right now, and that’s a thought a lot of people in the country agree to. With a slew of anime movies being released over the past year, and Crunchyroll deciding to venture into the Indian market, the fans in India, for the first time, are spoilt for choices when it comes to streaming their favorite anime.

True, there is still some way to go before the anime culture in India can be comparable to that of France or even the United States, but things are surely moving in the positive direction.

Despite all the noise made by the big-wigs, there is a budding anime platform that is managing to get itself heard and noticed by the aforementioned fans. This platform is none other than Quriverse.

With a lot of excitement buzzing around what is termed as the future of anime fandoms and fan communities, Animehunch Team decided to talk to Quriverse’s co-founder Abhishek Mehta to get to know more about what it is all about.

Read the exclusive interview below!

AH: What is Quriverse? Can you share the story behind it?

We at Quriverse are building the world’s first anime-exclusive social network for fans and ani-creators to monetize their content. We are a young team of IIT engineers based in Bangalore with a vision to build a truly global product from India.

The story of Quriverse starts from our college days when my co-founder Dhawal and I had our first real experience of what fandom truly means. Fandom, including anime, Marvel, and more, was the topic of discussion everywhere.

To stay updated on our fandoms, we built a small bot that could bring us all the updates on our favorite fandom from the web. As more students wanted to use it for their own purposes, the tool grew. The response intrigued us, and we delved deeper into this.

We realized how the fan experience needed improvement, and how existing solutions needed to do more. We saw how fan-creators were struggling and why a more tailored solution was needed. That’s how the initial idea of Quriverse came to be, and we went straight to the whiteboard to figure out exactly what the community needs!”

AH: Why name the platform Quriverse?

Well, this is an interesting story. Quriverse is registered as Metaverse Technology Private Limited, and we’re thrilled not only to see but also to build the next iteration of the Internet.

We want to build for all the fans out there, the people who are curious to know everything about their favorite fandoms. Quriverse is a combination of fans’ curiosity in the metaverse, and that’s our vision for the company

AH: How is Quriverse different from other social media platforms and Discord? What will prompt people to use Quriverse app over these platforms?

The current social platforms have become too diluted, covering “everyone.” They can’t cater to the needs of a specific community, as we’ve already seen with the likes of discord, twitch & one-football as exclusive social networks for a “niche” with features tailored to the needs of that core community.

And that’s how simply we differ from all the other social networks in the market, as we’re tailored to the core needs of anime fans and creators.

So if you’re a fan who wants to start his community or find communities in one piece, we’ve it for you. If you want to maintain your watchlist & see what others are watching, you can do it on Quriverse.

If you want to see amazing cosplays, AMVs, fan theories & everything else in your fandom, we’ve it for you. And if you’re a fan-creator ( like an artist, cosplayer, animator, or ani-tuber ) or want to sell their merch / digital assets, we’ve got a lot in store for you to create, engage and, most importantly, earn money from that.

So if you think anything about anime, then Quriverse is the ultimate destination you want to be at!

AH: We read that one can monetize the content on the web-app, how does that work? Can you explain what type of content can be monetized and how Quriverse benefits or stands to make a profit from it?

We categorize creators on Quriverse [in] 3 major ways. Fan-creators; the likes of theorists, cosplayers, bloggers. 2nd being artists; the likes of animators & illustrators. And finally folks who’re selling physical merchandise on social platform.

We’re helping creators make money via multiple tools like helping them setup there professional portfolio, get commission work & setup stores and streamlining the process. And for our monetization ( as we’ve to pay server bills 😆 ) will be a transaction fees associated with the same.

We will be releasing more info on this in the coming weeks. The scope of what can be “monetized” will be governed by the policies that we’ve regarding the fair use policy and copyright laws.

AH: Where do you see Quriverse in five years?

We want to be India’s first global success in social media. Till now, Indian companies in the social area have built for the “Bharat,” but still, global platforms like discord, the twitch’s, and all come from the west, and we surely want to be up there from all facets.

We want to be the biggest platform and marketplace for Anime, animation & arts. Also, we would like to move into nearby verticals, maybe say, Marvel or DC comics

AH: What are your thoughts on the Indian anime community?

I have two words for them Love and massive respect.

How the Indian anime community has risen in the past few years has been great to watch. From where we had to write petitions for the official releases to now having JJK as India’s highest grossing foreign language movie, the anime community journey has been incredible.

And kudos to everyone involved in bringing this wave of publications like Animehunch, anime creators to regional anime clubs & everyone else involved in it.

We recently saw the Mumbai Comic-Con interview of Animehunch and loved to know that anime & manga is now dominating over marvel & dc. This is just great to watch. And the best part is I feel the Indian anime community wave has just started, and the coming years look very exciting to us.

AH: We know that the animanga fans in the country are not available in a single place. So, how did you go about conducting your market research for Quriverse?

That’s very true, to be honest. Initially, we did face a lot of issues, but the community has been very supportive of us from day 1. It’s said that ‘When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do’, and that’s what we did. We are deeply involved in community building and scaling a few ani-manga communities to 50k people on Quora.

We gained a lot of insights from there about what the fans want and what we’ve to build for them. Being involved in the community helped us connect with various stakeholders, from admins of regional anime clubs, cosplayers, and big anime influencers, which helped shape our thesis on what Quriverse should be.

AH: How did you convince 100X VC to fund Quriverse and how has that helped you scale the business?

We come from a background where we’ve got the technical skills for building and scaling tech apps. The overall idea of Quriverse and our domain is very unconventional. Something in fandom, a social space from India, is a rarity that 100x liked.

Using our effort in building and scaling the community, and research on the market, we convinced the team at 100x that there’s a blue ocean market ready to grab. We’ve been very grateful to have one of India’s top investment firms backing us, the team of Mr. Sanjay Mehta, Vatsal, and Yagnesh; everyone on the team 100x helped in maturing as an entrepreneur and individual.

We hope to continue building upon this trust and take the Quriverse to new heights.

AH: What is your message to anime fans across the country?

We love the passion anime fans have in this country; the best part is that it’s getting better every day. We are here to take it to the next level and put India on the global map of anime fandom.

But we need the support of the Indian anime community to build something truly remarkable. Remember, the giants like discord, Instagram, Twitch, and all weren’t made in a single day. It’s a journey, and we would like you guys to participate; we’ve even made our roadmap public.

Join us in this mission to build the world’s biggest anime-exclusive social network!