http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-10-22/crunchyroll-sumitomo-announce-partnership-to-create-company-to-co-produce-anime/.94495 "Media distribution service Crunchyroll and Japanese trading company Sumitomo Corporation announced on Thursday that they have launched a joint venture to create a company focused on funding anime co-production projects. By being part of an anime's production committee, the company can immediately acquire foreign distribution rights and promote anime outside of Japan. Crunchyroll and Sumitomo Corporation have yet to announce the company's name, the amount that either participant is investing, or the scope of the investment. The announcement lists that Crunchyroll has 700,000 paying subscribers and more than 10 million registered users worldwide. Iehisa Nakamura — Sumitomo Corporation's corporate officer and general manager of its media division — said in the announcement, "with this partnership, the voice of worldwide anime fans can reach anime production studios directly through the Crunchyroll platform, which I believe will produce fascinating anime for a worldwide audience as a result. We would like to contribute to the development of the anime industry by creating new anime for worldwide Japanese anime fans with Crunchyroll." In its report on the announcement, the Anime! Anime! Japanese industry news website speculated that the move may be driven by increasingly high licensing costs for anime in recent years, due in part to the stiff competition for acquiring licenses for foreign distribution. Anime! Anime! added that by being part of the production committee, companies can instead be certain that they will hold the rights, instead of paying high licensing fees... "