AI Film & TV Studio Zhedie Secures Millions in Seed Funding From Aishi Technology

Zhedie (Folding), an AI digital film and television company registered as Shanghai Folding Visual Design Co., has completed a multi-million-dollar seed round strategic investment from Aishi Technology in August, 36Kr exclusively learned. The funding will mainly be used to expand the creative and technical team, build out its AI workflow, and procure and develop IPs.

Zhedie's main business is not the booming AI short-drama segment, but medium- and long-form episodes, animated films, advertisements, and other content produced by mixing traditional processes with AI. Demand for this kind of business is growing significantly in both domestic and overseas markets, and AI hybrid production demands a strong combination of traditional content-production capability and large-model application skills.

Sam, a member of the founding team, said domestic platforms have responded extremely fast to the traditional-plus-AI model, and Zhedie is currently cooperating on several hybrid production projects. Last year, the company delivered content rated S-level by Hongguo Short Drama, a leading short-drama platform.

On the AI short-drama track, Zhedie has for now adopted a volume-running strategy — since the entry threshold is low, the approach also helps precipitate data assets and spot potential talent. 36Kr previously reported that Seedance 2.0, which almost dominates the AI short-drama track, has a gross profit margin of over 70 percent, making it one of the most profitable businesses under ByteDance's Volcano Engine.

However, the track that could generate profits quickly at the start of this year has now become a red ocean, squeezed by national regulatory policies and oversupply on the content side. With the era of easy money over, the industry is turning to IP development and higher commercial ceilings through AI — and Zhedie is one of the players in this field.

The studio was co-founded by Cage and Hisun, digital artists with strong aesthetic and creative ability, and every founding team member comes from content platforms, copyright companies, or AI technology enterprises. The team believes that the more automated content production becomes, the further the result will be from high-quality works. They argue that AI can easily produce content scoring 60 points, but 100-point top-tier content requires people who are proficient in AI technology and have traditional aesthetic attainments.

Zhedie runs AI at its core with a considerable headcount: a production team of hundreds of people across multiple cities, turning out up to 5,000 minutes of high-quality content per month, roughly equivalent to 40 feature films. It has built its own AI workflow with agents for script decomposition, prompt generation, and character setting, plus a dedicated technical team that also supports the adaptation and production of AI games.

Video platforms including iQiyi, Tencent Video, Youku, Mango TV, and Bilibili are all exploring how to integrate AI into their content pipelines. Sam noted there is no final conclusion yet on whether to transform existing workflows with AI or create AI-native content, but AI is certainly the future direction. Zhedie has reached cooperation with multiple platforms to adapt platform IPs through AI hybrid production, with related high-quality content expected to launch by the end of this year, and it is also preparing an AI hybrid animated film for theatrical release.