Creating animations is a time-consuming process and requires multiple steps, including creating a single scene, such as storyboarding, rendering, composition, lighting, and more. If the director wants to try another take on the scene, the animation team will need to go back and tweak before confirming the scene.
Cheehoo, a startup founded by a combination of Hollywood executives and engineers, wants to create AI-powered tools that make it easy for creatives to create animated content.
The startup was born from Rideback, a production company that produced the Lego film franchise. Rideback co-CEOs Michael Lofaso and Jonathan Eirich are part of Cheehoo's founding team along with Rideback co-founder Dan Lin. Other founding members include former president of DreamWorks Animation Chris Defaria and former Apre AI researchers Hubert Tsai and Wei-Cheng Kuo.
In a conversation with TechCrunch, Lofaso said that Cheehoo wants to lead the way for the studio and creators to make animation a reality.
“What we found through rideback was the process of creating animations in Hollywood becoming more expensive and complicated,” Rofaso said. “It was beginning to be difficult for creators to come up with their ideas in the world. We wanted to create tools that grew naturally in creators' workflows and make their lives easier.”
Cheehoo's tools provide creators with a way to quickly prototype and iterate animations. It helps with tasks such as data annotation, file conversion, and format consistency, allowing creators to navigate between different steps in the animation process.
Cheehoo's workflows that can be integrated with existing platforms such as Maya and Unreal allow users to modify animations and see the results immediately. Creators can turn AI features on or off to give them more control over the editing process. Cheehoo can use in-house AI models to help create characters and assets, and can also integrate third-party models such as Openai, Runway, and more for tasks such as post-generation, motion styling, and scene composition.
Cheehoo did not announce a launch partner, but said the company is already working with several IP owners, studios and creators. Cheehoo has raised $10 million in funding led by Greycroft with participation from Point72 Ventures, Basing Set, Headline Asia, Powerhouse Capital, Playground Productions and Rideback.
Greycroft principal Brentt Baltimore said venture companies are always more likely to invest in companies that create “new” media. He added that he believes Chief has the right combination of Hollywood, media and technology DNA to solve the problems with the animation pipeline.
“Cheehoo has the opportunity to reduce the cost of animation production overall,” Baltimore said in an interview. “This means that sophisticated creators can easily create animated films without having to have an expensive studio setup. […] AI, the company is trying to put enterprise or large studio-level workflows into tools that allow independent filmmakers to have creativity with animation capabilities for individuals. And we do all this while providing creative control to the users that creatives have always wanted. ”
Looking to the future, Rofaso said he intends to deploy more consumer-centric products while Chief is working primarily with businesses and promers. This may help Cheehoo compete with startups like Accel Backed Cartwheel and Naver Backed Cinamon.