Sony-owned Funimation recently announced that they'd form a new partnership with Hulu following their split with Crunchyroll but it seems they had bigger plans all along. At AnimeJapan 2019 this past weekend, it was revealed that Funimation and Bilibili have formed a new partnership with the sole aim of acquiring Japanese IP, namely anime.
In a press release, Gen Fukunaga, President and Chief Executive Officer of Funimation stated, "We’re thrilled to be partnering with Bilibili and to start pursuing new anime development and distribution opportunities together. This collaboration will help drive and serve the global demand for anime, allowing us to not only bring exciting new anime to market but also provide access to fans around the world. In addition, this will enable us to significantly increase our ability to offer Simuldub™ titles day and date with the Japanese broadcast. This is truly a great day for both the industry and anime fans everywhere."
It will certainly be interesting to see how and if Crunchyroll will counter this move. Over the next few years, Funimation and Bilibili could just simply outbid Crunchyroll for choice anime series coming out of Japan.