Webtoon comic app Toonsutra registers over 1 million downloads (2024)

Toonsutra, India's webtoon comic app, has become the top comic app in India, with over a million downloads in both Apple and Android app stores for over two months.

Toonsutra aims to establish the world's largest fandom and pop culture community in India's over 700 million mobile youth market. It is the only premium webtoon comics app in the region dedicated to catering to Indian audiences with Hindi, Tamil, and Telegu language content offerings.

The company has already locked up partnership deals with some of the biggest global publishers and creators to bring over 550+ titles and 250,000 episodes of content into local Indian languages in an easy-to-read vertical scroll format optimised for mobile.

The global webtoon market is projected to reach a staggering $60 billion by 2030, making it one of the fastest-growing new categories for media and content.

Furthermire, Naver's Webtoon Entertainment's $2.7 billion IPO has fueled global webtoon market excitement, attracting new audiences and territories for storytelling comic platforms.

Toonsutra was founded by veteran media entrepreneurs Sharad Devarajan, who is the company’s executive chairman, and Vishal Anand, Toonsutra’s CEO.

It is also backed by a leading group of investors, including the Sony Innovation Fund, Maiora Capital, Kun Gao (cofounder, Crunchyroll), Jeremy Liew (partner, Lightspeed), Kevin Lin (cofounder, Twitch), Patrick Lee (cofounder, Rotten Tomatoes), Holly Lui (cofounder, Kabam), Benjamin Grubbs (cofounder, CreatorPlus), Steve Chung (former CEO of Americas, CJENM), and others.

“Toonsutra is not just an app; it's a fandom community and a pop-culture movement. We're bridging the gap between global storytelling and local audiences, creating a new language of entertainment that resonates with India's digital-first generation. Our rapid growth shows that Indian audiences are hungry for the highest-quality, premium webtoon comic stories made available in their languages and in easily snackable mobile short episodes,” commented Toonsutra Co-Founder and Chairman, Sharad Devarajan.

Devarajan is also the founder and CEO of a leading Indian character entertainment company, Graphic India, and brings over 25 years of comic and fandom experience, having created over 200 episodes of animation and 300 comics. He created Spider-Man India with Marvel; created and produced the #1 hit show, Baahubali: Crown of Blood, with SS Rajamouli; and created and produced the Legend of Hanuman series with Disney+Hotstar, which remains the #1 animated project in Indian history.

"The initial success we are seeing for Toonsutra underscores a fundamental shift in content consumption patterns across Indian youth. We're not just riding the wave of digital transformation; we're actively shaping it by combining cutting-edge technology with compelling storytelling. At Toonsutra, we are creating an ecosystem where the biggest global creators and publishers can thrive by reaching entirely new regional language audiences, and Indian readers can discover new worlds with every scroll. Our mission goes beyond entertainment; we're fostering a new era of creativity, community, and creative expression in India," added Toonsutra Co-Founder and CEO, Vishal Anand.

Anand is a serial digital media entrepreneur and was formerly CPO of Dailyhunt, where he was part of the core initial team managing their product and tech teams to scale the business into one of India’s most successful media platforms (currently with over 300 million users). Anand was also part of the product leadership team at Amazon Web Services.