Are you a storyteller aspiring to be a comic artist? Dashtoon has got your back!

Is storytelling your thing? Want to be a comic artist to bring your tales alive and don’t know how? Then you should know more about Dashtoon.

Dashtoon is a startup which was founded in December 2022 by Sanidhya Narain, Lalith Gudipati, and Soumyadeep Mukherjee. 

Their mission – to empower storytellers to become comic artists, even if they can’t draw at all! 

The company has developed an array of AI tools that assist creators into bringing their stories to life along with a publishing platform to post their work at. 

The Dashtoon comic reader is a space for readers to discover new interesting stories by up and coming creators with stories that are updated daily. 

The story so far – Dashtoon has commissioned about 30 comics and plans to add nearly 1,000 new episodes each  month. The company, which adopted a freemium model offering one free episode daily for each comic, began monetizing in October 2023 and anticipates generating $15,000 in revenue in its first month, with ambitious plans to reach $100,000 per month within the next few months.

Who’s got Dashtoon’s back – The recent $5 million in seed funding for Dashtoon was led by Matrix partners India and Stellaris venture partners, with contributions from angel investors. Narain and Gudipati have previously worked on Pocket FM’s founding team, and Mukherjee has experience in deep tech from companies like Morphle labs, which focuses on cancer diagnosis robotics, making for strong core team.

Comics, anyone?

Dashtoon’s idea originated from a successful marketing experiment using comic strips at Pocket FM, revealing a demand for digital comics in the U.S. They developed an AI Creation Suite led by Mukherjee to simplify comic creation, with plans to add AI capabilities for storyboards and dialogues. The platform combines AI with human creativity, ensuring creators maintain control over their work and prevent copyright issues. Their key features are a vast content library and quick episode releases, focusing on building a native creator community. 

Dashtoon’s USP is its extensive content library and rapid episode release rate. It aims to create a native creator community, differentiating itself from competitors. As content creation and distribution undergo transformation, Dashtoon presents an alternative to traditional methods, making comics more accessible to a broader audience. Initially focusing on long-form content in genres like romance, drama, and fantasy, Dashtoon plans to expand into other genres within fiction, non-fiction, and short-form illustrated content. They aim to collaborate with published writers to convert their stories into digital comics and eventually build a community of creators who debut their work on the platform.