Comic-book startup Dstlry announced in August it raised a $5 million seed round.
Its team used a 36-page pitch deck to tell a story for investors around creator content and tech.
In the deck, its founders highlighted their work backgrounds and 2023 projects to score new funding.
Comic-book upstart Dstlry announced this monthit raised a $5 million seed round, bringing its total funding to $7.4 million since 2022 when cofounders Chip Mosher and David Steinberger began working on the project.
Dstlry is a comic-book publishing platform that gives creators an equity cut and resale royalties, offering more potential upside for artists and writers than traditional comics publishers. It also runs a marketplace for customers to resell digital editions, verifying authenticity via the company's ledger system.
Mosher and Steinberger have lived and breathed comic books for more than a decade. Steinberger cofounded the comic-book platform Comixology in 2007, where Mosher would later serve as head of content. The pair joined Amazon in 2014 after it acquired the upstart, helping to shape the tech giant's digital comics and manga content experience.
That background gave the pair a leg up when it came time to fundraise for Dstlry, Steinberger told Business Insider.
"In seed funding, I think investors put as much on the people as the idea," he said. "Selling a company to Amazon is a proof point. Running worldwide comics there is a proof point."
The company's recent round was led by 1AM Gaming. Other investors include publishers Kodansha and Delcourt, former Warner Bros. executive Lorenzo di Bonaventura, tech investor Mike Vorhaus, and video-game veteran John Schappert.
Even with strong backgrounds in comics, the fundraising environment was "weird," Steinberger said, particularly given how much artificial-intelligence has infiltrated the imaginations of VCs.
Dstlry's story for investors was rooted in its content and relationships with human creators. It's a media publisher that operates a marketplace with some Web3 components that allow it to verify ownership. But it's specifically built not to feel like a platform for NFTs, short for non-fungible tokens. "The fun of digital collecting without the blockchain BS," the company wrote on its website.
The company is betting on original, human-made content and using technology to bring that front and center. For example, it recently added the ability for creators to digitally sign and sketch on new comic-book editions.
"I think that more and more, human-made items and artifacts are going to be a value," he said. "We've kind of swam against the trends."
In its 36-page pitch deck to investors, the company highlighted its cofounders' backgrounds, outlined how its platform helps creators and customers, touted the success of the three projects Dstlry published in 2023, and teased how it plans to expand the business.
BI is publishing 26 key slides, excluding some with repeated or redacted information such as Dstlry's valuation, run rate, and proprietary business plans.
In the pitch, the cofounders said they preferred to have fewer words on slides as they believed it's better to describe something to investors rather than have them read it off of a slide.
"We spent a lot of time on the deck trying to really refine the storytelling," Steinberger said. "Obviously, we love comic books, and comic books have an economy of storytelling, and we wanted the deck to reflect the fun of the industry that we work in."
Introducing Dstlry
DSTLRY.
Dstlry's cofounders told BI they first began planning the business in the second half of 2022. The company published its first comic book, "The Devil's Cut," in August 2023.
Dstlry has a countdown clock on its website for comic-book drops
DSTLRY.
Dstlry publishes both physical and digital versions of its comic books. The company also sells T-shirts and other apparel related to its releases.
On this slide, the founders wrote that "DSTLRY is a premium physical-digital drop culture collectibles company with creators at its core — delivering the best of digital collectibles worldwide."
A different kind of publisher
DSTLRY.
Dstlry teases that it is a "different kind of publisher."
Dstlry's cofounders, Chip Mosher and David Steinberger
DSTLRY.
Cofounders Chip Mosher and David Steinberger worked together on digital comics upstart Comixology, which Amazon acquired in 2014.
Steinberger oversaw comics and manga at Amazon
DSTLRY.
Steinberger cofounded Comixology before Dstlry. In Dstlry's deck, the company touted that he is a technical product leader with 15 years of experience, including:
Multiple comics-reading patents
Led and defined the experience for comics and manga worldwide for Amazon between 2014 and 2022
Became a go-to Web3 consultant internally to the Amazon Alexa Investment Fund
Comixology was a top grosser in Apple's app store
DSTLRY.
The company highlighted that Comixology was a top-grossing non-game app for three years.
Praise for Steinberger
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The company quoted Forbes contributor Rob Salkowitz, who wrote in March 2022 on the pop culture site ICV2 that "it's hard to think of many other people who have had as big an impact on the 21st-century comics business as David Steinberger."
Mosher's background includes marketing roles at Boom! Studios and Comixology
DSTLRY.
The company wrote that Mosher's experience included 30-plus years of experience as a comics entrepreneur, including:
Deeply connected to comics talent and entertainment industry
Head of marketing at Boom! Studios
Head of marketing and communications at Comixology between 2011 and 2018
Head of content for Comixology Originals between 2017 and 2022
Around 10% to 15% of the intellectual property that Mosher worked on for Comixology Originals, the company's content arm, has been optioned, according to Dstlry.
Praise for Mosher
DSTLRY.
Comics artist and writer Steve Murray, known professionally as Chip Zdarsky, wrote in June 2022 that "it was Chip's passion for comics and getting people to read them that secured us our Eisner win for 'Afterlift,' I'm sure of it."
Dstlry says it helps creators do their 'best, most commercial work'
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Dstlry is structured to "encourage creators to do their best, most commercial work," the company wrote.
The publishing industry has been tough for comics creators
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"Creators are taken advantage of by publishers, or are ill-served by them," Dstlry wrote atop a series of news clips reporting comic creator dissatisfaction with the industry.
Dstlry highlights how it pays creators
DSTLRY.
Dstlry told BI it set aside 3% of its shares for its first three years of publishing to award options to creators. It distributes those shares based on how much revenue a creator's work brings in for the company.
The company also says it offers royalties based on cover price, the same royalty tiers for all parties, and a "human-readable contract" in an understandable order with a summary and signature page at the front featuring what creators told them were the most important details for a contract.
Creators 'heart' the model
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"We've proven the best creators in the business 'heart' our model," the company wrote.
Press coverage about Dstlry
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The company excerpted quotes from recent press coverage, including a New York Times piece that described Dstlry's first comic-book writers as a "murderers' row of talent."
Dstlry customers get to collect something
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Dstlry offers physical and digital versions of comic books, and some purchases come with benefits like "special access to collectibles, live online and IRL events, and more," per its website.
"DSTLRY customers feel like they are a part of something," the company wrote in its deck. "They get the fun and satisfaction of collecting in digital, with benefits."
The company touts its different formats
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So much of comic-book culture is about collecting. Dstlry's system allows users to collect physical and digital versions of comics, along with the ability to resell digital copies in its marketplace.
The thesis is working
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In its deck, Dstlry had several slides with a single, broad idea. This was on purpose.
"The slide should just tell them exactly what you want them to take away," Steinberger told BI.
"The thesis is working," Dstlry wrote on this slide, which was followed by supporting evidence.
The company's first 3 releases
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In 2023, Dstlry released "The Devil's Cut," a project developed by nearly two dozen writers and artists; "Gone" from Jock, Will Dennis, and Emma Price; and "Somna" from Becky Cloonan and Tula Lotay.
The company plans to publish around 60 works this year.
2023 performance
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Dstlry shared how the three comics performed in terms of sales, audience reception, and other criteria. It wrote:
No. 2 revenue generator for retailers the week of its release
50,000 sold in retail at $9.99
Sold out at distributor
"Gone"
Top re-ordered comic
40,000 sold in retail at $8.99
Sold out at distributor
Di Bonaventura Pictures developing script
"Somna"
Multiple 2023 top ten lists
Top re-ordered comic
30,000 sold in retail at $8.99
Sold out at distributor
Publisher of the year
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Comics-industry outlet The Beat named Dstlry its 2023 publisher of the year.
Dstlry customer survey data
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Dstlry surveyed its customers through social media and its mailing list and found that 91% felt positive about its company.
Steinberger said the company framed this slide, as with others in the presentation, around what he wanted investors to take away.
"We didn't say 'Survey Results,'" Steinberger said. "That's terrible. That's not telling them at all what's going on there."
Dstlry's investor and advisor team
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Dstlry's investor and advisor team includes Lorenzo di Bonaventura,a former president at Warner Bros.; John Schappert, cofounder of video-game developer Tiburon Entertainment; and tech, gaming, and digital-media investor Mike Vorhaus.
Other key investors
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The company lists investors 1AM Gaming, GFR Fund, Japanese publisher Kodansha, and French publisher Delcourt as other key shareholders.
The Dstlry flywheel
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The company then included a business flywheel (a concept commonly used by staffers at Amazon to show how different parts of a business can help others grow).
Dstlyr's flywheel is built around the company courting top creators to bring original content to its platform. It packages that content in a "premium product" and digital experience, which then drives up fan engagement.
Dstlry closed out its deck with an email prompt
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At the end of its presentation, Dstlry offered a closing slide with a prompt to "email for more information."
