Superplastic—the entertainment company behind self-dubbed “synthetic celebrities” Janky and Guggimon—has raised $20 million in an investment round led by Amazon.
This round brings Vermont-based Superplastic up to a total of $67 million raised since its founding in 2017. Over the past six years, Superplastic has worked with IPs, brands, and celebrities including Fortnite, Gucci, Mercedes-Benz, Tommy Hilfiger, Christie’s, J. Balvin, Kidsuper, Pusha-T, Paris Hilton, Post Malone, The Weeknd, Vince Staples, and Rico Nasty.
In addition to receiving an undisclosed amount of money from Amazon’s Alexa Fund (which is making $200 worth of investments to “fuel voice technology innovation”), Superplastic signed a first-look TV and film deal with the ecommerce giant’s Amazon Studios.
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Per Variety, Amazon Studios in now early development of The Janky & Guggimon Show, which the official description says will follow “two lazy and spectacularly incompetent best friends who are hell-bent on getting rich and famous but leave a trail of chaos and destruction in their wake.”
Superplastic’s $20 million Series A also included investment from Craft Ventures, Google Ventures, Galaxy Digital, Kering, Sony Japan, Scribble Ventures, Kakao, Animoca Brands, Day One Ventures, and Betaworks Ventures.
“Superplastic’s universe of synthetic celebrities have earned a cult following in every medium they’ve touched,” Superplastic founder/CEO Paul Budnitz said in a statement. (Janky and Guggimon’s digital presences are hubbed on Instagram, where they have one million and 1.5 million followers, respectively.)
Budnitz added, “The new collaboration partnership with Amazon Studios reaches a massive audience and provides a new playground for us to wreak havoc worldwide. We’re grateful for the investment the Amazon Alexa Fund gave us to help us continue to grow the Superplastic Universe!”
