In 1967’s The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman’s fresh out of college Benjamin Braddock is told the future is in plastics. In 2023, Amazon is taking some of that advice to heart and betting some of its future on Superplastic.
To be specific, that wager on the snarling character design company is taking the form of a $20 million investment round via the House of Bezos’ Alexa Fund. Additionally, the Paul Budnitz formed Superplastic have inked a first-look development deal with Amazon Studios to bring their saucy social media and NFT friendly street level characters to the streaming screen.
To that end and drawing from some of Superplastic’s OG synthetic celebrities, The Janky & Guggimon Show is already in development at Amazon.
Beyond promising that “each episode features a cast of animated and human celebrity friends” and will stream exclusively on Amazon Prime if picked up to series, the studio has nothing more to say on when or what to expect from The Janky & Guggimon Show
However, with blood, guts, outrage, anarchy and iconography galore as Superplastic’s calling card for collaborations with the likes of cartoon supergroup Gorillaz and captains of industry like Mercedes-Benz, the recent high-speed partnership with the car company may provide a manic clue or two for what The Janky & Guggimon Show could pan out to be:
Regardless of what that final J&G product looks like, today’s announcement has everyone involved beaming.
“Superplastic’s universe of synthetic celebrities have earned a cult following in every medium they’ve touched,” said Superplastic founder and CEO Budnitz Wednesday of the Amazon investment and development deal, which is part of a much larger funding round. “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!”
Kicked off with a Kickstarter campaign almost six years ago by KidRobot creator Budnitz and artist Gee, Superplastic have brought a particular type of collectable toy madness to the likes of Gucci, Fortnite, Pusha-T, Paris Hilton, Post Malone, The Weeknd, and Vince Staples, as well as the Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett created Gorillaz.
Now Amazon, which surprisingly doesn’t sell Superplastic figures and apparel on their everything store site – yet – joins the gang.
“As we expand the Alexa Fund to address a wider range of consumer technologies that include ambient computing, smart devices, and the future of entertainment, we’re very excited to add Superplastic to our portfolio,” exclaims Alexa Fund director Paul Bernard, “Superplastic’s virtual celebrities delight audiences and meet their customers where they are, and we see them as demonstrative of a new class of IP that is going to be increasingly relevant with younger generations,” the head of the 2015 founded venture capital fund added. “We are excited to be an investor and to continue to help Superplastic and Amazon’s Media and Entertainment teams identify more ways to delight customers.”
In its eight-year lifespan so far, the Amazon Alexa Fund has backed work in the fields of AI, web3 and other digital technologies. Along with Superplastic, those investments are viewed as the future of the 29-year-old company, which has a current market valuation of $1.020 trillion.