AI animation startup Cheehoo lands $10M funding from Greycroft

Creating animation is a long -lasting process, which requires more steps, including plans, display, composition and lighting for the production of a unique scene. If the director wants to experiment with a different taking of the scene, the animation team must return and adapt things before the scene can end.

CheehooThe startup that founded a mixture of Hollywood executors and technologists wants to create a tool with AI drive to make creatives more easily create animated content.

Startup was born from RideBack’s production company, which produced the Lego Movie franchise. The water supplication of Rideback, Michael Lofaso and Jonathan Eirich, are part of the founding team of Cheehoo, along with the co-founder of Rideback Dan Lin. Other members of the founder include former Dreamworks animation president Chris Defaria and former AI-JI AI-JI researchers AI Hubert Tsai and Wei-Cheng Kuo.

In an interview with Techcrunh, Lofaso said that Cheehoo wanted to lead the way to studies and creatives to revive their animation.

“What we found through Rideback is that in Hollywood the process of making animation was expensive and complex,” Lofaso said. “The creators began to become harder to pull out their idea in the world. We wanted to create a tool that was original for the course of the creative work and make their lives easier.”

Cheehoo tools provide creatives to a way to repeat the prototype in animation. They help with tasks such as data notes, file conversions and consistency of format, allowing creatives to move between the different steps of the animation process.

Cheehoo -O’s course of work, which can be integrated with existing platforms such as May or Unreal, allows users to change the animation and see the results immediately. Creators may include or exclude AI features to download more control over the editing process. Cheehoo uses internal AI models to help creating character and property, and also allows users to integrate third parties from Openi, Runway and others for tasks such as post generations, stylization of movement and scene composition.

Cheehoo has not announced any partner to start, but the company has said that he has already been working with several IP holders, a study and a creative. Cheehoo has raised 10 million dollars of funding led by Greycroft, with participation in point 72 Ventures, Set, Set, title Asia, Powerhouse Capital, Playground Productions and RideBack.

Brentt Baltimore, Director in Graycroft, said the endeavor company has always been prone to investing in companies that create “New Age” media. He added that he thought Chehehoo had a real combination of Hollywood, media and technological DNA to solve problems in animation pipelines.

“Cheehoo has the opportunity to reduce the cost of production of animation as a whole,” Baltimore said in an interview. “This means that it can have sophisticated creatives can easily create animation films without expensive studies. […] Ai, the company is trying to put on business or large flows at a study level in a tool that allows independent filmmakers to individuals to be creative with animation features. All of this is also done, providing creative control for users, which creatives have always wanted. “

Looking at the future, Lofaso said that although Cheehoo mostly cooperates with companies and prosperies, he intends to develop more products aimed at consumers. This could help Cheehoo to compete against startups like A wheel supported by acceleration and Cinamon supported by naturewhich also make tools that help simplify aspects of animation production.