Next Generation Culture

The cleanest way to understand this constellation is that Beijing Cishi Culture Media Co., Ltd. (北京次世文化传媒有限公司), often rendered as Next Generation Culture or simply NextWorld/次世文化 in English-facing coverage, is the core studio and strategic brand, while Beijing Kuake Yinzi Technology Co., Ltd. (北京夸克引子科技有限公司) appears to be the technology-side operating entity tied to the VBS / VirtualBeings product stack and the virtualbeings.cn platform. In other words, 次世文化 is the better-known market-facing company narrative built around virtual-human IP, celebrity-linked avatars, original hyper-real characters, and commercialization through entertainment and brand work, while VBS is the productization layer that extends that earlier studio/IP business into a broader digital-identity and platform model. Public reporting in 2022–2023 explicitly connects VBS 拟人 to 次世文化, describing it as a “digital identity open system” created by 次世文化 and later positioned as an app and ecosystem rather than just a single virtual character project.

That makes the company structure less like two unrelated firms and more like a parent-brand and operating-subsidiary arrangement built around one evolving business thesis. The first phase was media-style virtual human production: celebrity virtual doubles such as Dilraba’s “迪丽冷巴” and Huang Zitao’s “韬斯曼,” original hyper-real virtual figures such as LING, and other branded or entertainment-oriented characters including Purple and NAND. That phase is well documented in financing coverage, which describes 次世文化 as a virtual-human ecosystem company that creates, packages, operates, and commercializes virtual IP across multiple categories rather than offering only enterprise service avatars. The second phase was the shift from making virtual people for brands and stars to building infrastructure for user digital identity and interoperable use cases, which is exactly how VBS was framed by Chen Yan in later interviews.

The main person anchoring both layers is Chen Yan (陈燕). Chinese business and media coverage consistently identifies her as founder and CEO of 次世文化, and quotes her describing VBS as a user digital identity generation system and open ecosystem. Her background is not presented as pure engineering. It is rooted in entertainment production, artist coordination, music, and advertising, which helps explain why the company’s virtual-human model has always emphasized character packaging, culture, aesthetics, and commercial operation rather than only technical avatar services. The company’s financing history also reinforces that this is one strategic continuum: a US$5 million Series A in July 2021 led by CCV with Shunwei follow-on, then an A+ round in October 2021 led strategically by NetEase with existing investors participating, and then an A3 round in early 2022 backed by Sequoia China, during which the company publicly introduced VBS as its next strategic product.

Zou Siwei (邹四维) fits this constellation as the creative-worldbuilding side of the same ecosystem rather than as a separate corporate pole. Public material ties him to 次世文化’s early “cross-dimensional” identity through the live-action/animation series 戏隐江湖, which Beijing Cishi Culture Media co-produced and which he directed. That supports the view that the company’s DNA was always hybrid entertainment plus virtual-character design, and that VBS grew out of an existing content-and-creative pipeline rather than appearing as a standalone enterprise software venture. By contrast, the Cui Jing point is plausible but softer from the evidence I checked just now: your description of her as a director and investor-profile figure fits the kind of board-level linkage a company like this would have, but I did not verify that relationship from a strong primary or near-primary source in this pass, so I would treat it as provisional unless you want a separate verification pass focused only on her.

ngcomic.com appears to be the legacy shared domain of the broader 次世文化 / VBS company cluster rather than a separate outside company. Public business-directory records tie ng@ngcomic.com to Beijing Cishi Culture Media Co., Ltd. (北京次世文化传媒有限公司), while public VBS app listings tied to Beijing Kuake Yinzi Technology Co., Ltd. use kefu@ngcomic.com and bd@ngcomic.com even though the public product website is virtualbeings.cn. This suggests that 次世文化 is the earlier and better-known studio and brand nucleus, focused on virtual humans, entertainment IP, and celebrity-linked digital characters, while Beijing Kuake Yinzi is the later technology and product operating entity behind the VBS platform. In that structure, ngcomic.com functions as the inherited internal or group communications domain, whereas virtualbeings.cn serves as the newer outward-facing website for the VBS product. The most plausible interpretation is that “ng” reflects “Next Generation,” matching the English rendering often used for 次世文化, and that “comic” likely reflects an earlier company identity tied more closely to comics, animation, or youth-oriented digital culture before the business evolved toward virtual humans and digital identity systems. 

Company names variations, English:

• Beijing Cishi Culture Media Co., Ltd. — The formal company-name translation of 北京次世文化传媒有限公司, used when referring to the legal corporate entity in a direct, literal way.

• Next Generation Culture — The most common English-facing media rendering of 次世文化, used to convey the idea of a next-generation culture and entertainment studio.

• NextWorld Culture — An English brand-style rendering associated with 次世文化 in later coverage, especially when discussing its broader virtual-being and platform ambitions.

• Next Generation — A shortened English media label for the company, used in funding and startup coverage as a concise stand-in for the full company name.

• Cishi Culture — A pinyin-based transliteration style that preserves the Chinese name more directly without translating 次世 into English.

• Next-Generation Culture — A hyphenated variant of Next Generation Culture, used in some English writing to emphasize the phrase as a compound descriptor.

• Beijing Next Generation Culture — An expanded English rendering that combines the city and the translated brand name for clearer identification in international contexts.

• Beijing NextWorld Culture — An expanded variant that combines the city with the brand-style English rendering used in some later product and platform narratives.

Company name variations, Chinese:

• 北京次世文化传媒有限公司 — The full formal Chinese legal name of the company, identifying it as a Beijing-based culture and media company.

• 次世文化 — The standard short-form Chinese brand name, used in media coverage, social platforms, and general public-facing references.

• 北京次世文化 — A location-plus-brand variant used informally to distinguish the company from similarly named entities by attaching the Beijing identifier.

• 次世文化传媒 — A shortened descriptive variation that keeps the core brand name and media-sector identity while omitting the full legal suffix.

• 次世 — A highly abbreviated shorthand form used in casual or contextual reference when the company identity is already clear.

• 次世文化传媒有限公司 — A near-full legal-style variation that omits only the Beijing location marker while preserving the company’s media-culture identity and limited-company status.