Investor brief
Their shortfall funds our IP.
Special North publishes aviation picture books for children aged 4 to 9, paid for by the industry that will need them.
- $161.8bn
- character and entertainment licensing at retail, 2025
- 716,000
- aircraft technicians needed worldwide through 2043
- 9 titles
- in print, Braille, sound and sign in every one
- $18.14
- gross per book after print, on the founder's model
- 100%
- of the IP held outright, worldwide, all media, all languages
- 180 days
- from launch to the model's $500,000 revenue mark
Projected.
Projected.
Licensing figure from Licensing International's 2026 global study. Technician figure from Boeing's 2024 outlook. Everything marked projected is the founder's model, not a result.
0:00The cost
A parked aircraft costs $101 a minute.
$12,100
what two hours on the stand costs on a single narrowbody, before one passenger is counted.
Airlines for America, cost of aircraft delay to US passenger carriers
$100.76 a minute in crew, fuel, maintenance and ownership, across 120 minutes. Passenger time roughly doubles it, which is where the $200 a minute you may have heard comes from.
That is the symptom.
The industry books it as logistics. It is people: too few licensed engineers to turn the aircraft, and too few coming up behind them.
Delay costs are US carrier data and most delay minutes are weather and air traffic flow, not maintenance. The meter prices an aircraft standing still, which is what a missing engineer produces.
new aircraft maintenance technicians needed worldwide through 2043. About 284,000 of them are in Asia-Pacific, which is where we publish.
maintenance workers the industry is likely to be short in 2027 alone, about 24% of what it needs.
0:15What we make
Eleven years before the recruiters arrive.
Special North publishes the Sunny Aviation Adventure Series, nine titles in print, and runs Wings of Tomorrow, the STEAM and TVET programme around them.
4-9Where we reach a child, through the books and the programme.
18+Where the industry's own recruitment and training begins.
Age
The distance is the business. It is arithmetic between two ages, not a sourced figure, and it is the one claim on this page deliberately left uncited.
Ask seven-year-olds to draw the job they want and the pattern already matches what seventeen-year-olds name, gender lines included.
the fall in girls' STEM aspirations between ages 7 to 9 and 10 to 11, while boys' rose from 26% to 40%. Only 38% of children kept the same ambition across two years.
Davenport and Padwick, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2025, n=78
Patterned at seven. Still movable at nine. Recruited at eighteen.
The Sunny Aviation Adventure Series, nine titles, all in print
- Nine picture books
A six-year-old girl who fixes engines. Embossed Braille, a sound button and a signed video in every title. Ages 4 to 9.
- Wings of Tomorrow
STEAM and TVET sessions delivered around the books, for schools, museums and airline community programmes.
- An animated series
In development, 52 episodes of 11 minutes. The books are the bible. Unfinanced, and the reason a licence is worth more than a print run.
- A blank tail
The aircraft in every book flies unmarked. A sponsor's livery goes on it, their engineers go in the story, their name on the hangar wall.
Every title ships with Braille, sound and sign.
1.4m children under 15 are blind and 22.6m have moderate to severe vision loss. About 95.1m aged 5 to 19 live with hearing loss. Most picture books are printed for none of them.
- Built in, not retrofitted
Embossed Braille, a sound button and a signed video are in the page plan from the first spread. A competitor matching this starts nine titles behind.
- Marrakesh Treaty
Singapore, South Korea, the UAE and the Philippines are all parties, so accessible-format copies cross borders under a copyright exception rather than a fresh negotiation.
- European Accessibility Act
Applies to e-books sold into the EU since June 2025. It sets functional requirements through WCAG 2.1 AA and names no format. Our titles clear that bar, and it has no reach into Asia or the Gulf.
- For a sponsor
An accessible title reports against SDG 4 and SDG 10 at once, which turns one CSR line into an inclusion line without a second programme.
Access is not a feature we added. It is the reason a school buys the whole set.
0:35How it pays
22,000 books. $99,000 to print. $500,000 back.
Blended print cost $4.50 a book. Four channels, four prices, 180 days. Every figure here is a projection from the founder's model, not a result.
Gross after print costPrint and the rest of the price
Direct digital
12,000 x $25
$300,000
$246,000 gross after print, at $20.50 a unit
Corporate and airlines
5,000 x $15
$75,000
$52,500 gross after print, at $10.50 a unit
Institutional bulk
3,000 x $15
$45,000
$31,500 gross after print, at $10.50 a unit
Premium bundles
2,000 x $39
$78,000
Future Pilot and Engineer Kit. Gross not modelled: the kit is not a $4.50 book.
22,000 units | $22.64 blended price, $18.14 gross a book
$498,000
Gross after print cost only. Advertising, platform fees, freight and the bundle's own components are inside the gold and none of them are modelled. Treat it as the ceiling, not the result.
| Channel | Units | Price | Revenue | Gross after print |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct digital | 12,000 | $25 | $300,000 | $246,000 |
| Corporate and airlines | 5,000 | $15 | $75,000 | $52,500 |
| Institutional bulk | 3,000 | $15 | $45,000 | $31,500 |
| Premium bundles | 2,000 | $39 | $78,000 | not stated |
The margin is not a percentage. It is $18 a book, on a $4.50 book.
Build the machine once.
One flagship title, five languages, four channels: 20 sellable assets from one manuscript. The next title costs illustration and translation, and no new infrastructure.
1
flagship title, written and illustrated once.
- languages
- 5
- channels
- 4
20sellable assets
Budgets that must be spent anyway.
Airlines, OEMs and regulators already fund workforce and STEM programmes at disclosed scale. None of it puts a jet engine in front of a seven-year-old.
$50.8m
annual grants, 2025
Boeing, STEM and workforce development, across 424 grants.
$22m
commitment, 2024
GE Aerospace Foundation, $20m of it to Next Engineers through 2030.
S$30m
endowment, 2024
Singapore Airlines Foundation, funding youth and aviation programmes.
S$1bn
government package, March 2025
Singapore's CAAS aviation package, with a S$200m OneAviation Manpower Fund inside it.
CAAS aviation package and OneAviation Manpower Fund, March 2025
We are not asking these budgets to grow. We are asking to be a line in them.
Most foundation grants go to non-profits and this is a company, so these are not funds we can apply for. They are evidence that the budget line exists and what it is already for.
Books are priced as paper. IP is not.
Scholastic turns over $1.6bn and is worth about $660m. Moonbug turned over roughly $200m and sold for up to $3bn. Paper is priced one way, characters another.
up to $3bn
Moonbug, the CoComelon owner, sold to Candle Media in 2021 on roughly $200m of revenue. Digital-first, owned characters, no printing press.
0.41x
Scholastic, $1,625m of revenue against about $660m of market value. A century-old children's publisher, priced below half of one year's sales.
$500m
what Hasbro took for Entertainment One's production arm in 2023 while keeping Peppa Pig. The price of making things without owning them.
Special North holds its IP outright, worldwide, all media, all languages, by work-for-hire contract with every writer, illustrator and translator.
Moonbug sold with an audience of more than a hundred million subscribers and its multiple is indicative only. The comparison is about how the category prices characters, not a valuation of this company.
0:45The ask
Airlines lose $32.9 billion a year to delay.
And spend millions more recruiting late. We build the ambition, and the brand loyalty, before a child leaves primary school.
Two doors. Take the one you came for.
An investor funds the machine. A sponsor buys its first 10,000-unit run. Both are open now, and each one shortens the other.
Door one
The raise
On request
It prints the first 22,000 books, builds the four-channel machine, and hires the three roles that run it without the founder.
- Print run, 22,000 units
- $99,000
- Launch: five languages, advertising, pre-orders
- On the model
- Team: project manager, ads, outbound sales
- Three roles
Milestone: $500,000 of revenue inside 180 days of launch, on the model above.
Then the multiplier: titles two to nine into the same machine, and the series bible to market. You are buying into IP held outright, worldwide, all media, all languages.
Terms on request.
Door two
The pilot batch
10,000
Co-branded copies on premium departures from your hubs.
- Your livery on the aircraft. Your engineers in the story. Your name on the hangar wall.
- Reported against SDG 4, 10 and 12, in a form your CSR committee can file.
- One title, one batch, one route network.
The industry will pay for this pipeline either way. The question is who owns it.
Aida Ismail
Founder, Special North
1:00 One minute on the stand: $101.
That was the deal on one page.
The five-minute case, with the twenty-year timeline, the evidence and the hangar you can put your name in, is one click on. Investors: the deck and the model follow within a day of a message.
Request a proposal
Tell us the fleet, the region or the programme, and we will come back with an outline for your organisation. Investors: say so, and the deck and model come instead.