Cheehoo Emerges from Hollywood and Tech, Armed with $10M to Revolutionize Animation Production with AI

The world of animation is one of boundless creativity, capable of bringing fantastical stories and characters to life in ways that live-action filmmaking often cannot. Yet, behind the magic on screen lies a production process that is notoriously time-consuming, complex, and resource-intensive. Crafting even a single scene requires navigating through a multi-stage pipeline that typically includes storyboarding, concept art, 3D modeling, rigging, animation, texturing, lighting, rendering, and final composition. Each step demands specialized skills and significant time investment. Moreover, the iterative nature of creative work means that directors or supervisors often request changes. If a director wants to experiment with a different take for a scene perhaps altering a character's performance, adjusting the camera angle, or tweaking the lighting setup the animation team has to revisit multiple steps in the pipeline, potentially triggering lengthy re-renders and adjustments across various departments before the scene can be finalized. This iterative loop, while essential for refining the creative vision, adds significant cost and delays to production schedules, making high-quality animation a luxury often reserved for large studios with substantial budgets.

Recognizing these significant bottlenecks in the traditional animation workflow, a new startup named Cheehoo has landed $10 million in funding to tackle the problem head-on. Founded by an impressive mix of seasoned Hollywood executives and cutting-edge technologists, Cheehoo, Born from Rideback and Fueled by $10M, Aims to Demolish Animation Production Bottlenecks with AI. Their mission is to create an AI-powered toolset designed specifically to make it easier, faster, and more accessible for creatives of all levels to produce animated content, potentially lowering the barrier to entry for high-fidelity animation.

The roots of Cheehoo are deeply embedded in the film industry, specifically within the acclaimed production company Rideback, known for producing hits like the Lego Movie franchise. Ridebacks co-CEOs, Michael LoFaso and Jonathan Eirich, are integral parts of Cheehoos founding team, alongside Rideback co-founder Dan Lin. This pedigree brings invaluable insight into the practical challenges and workflows of major animation productions. Augmenting this industry experience is significant technological firepower: the founding team also includes former president of DreamWorks Animation, Chris deFaria, who brings a deep understanding of studio-level animation pipelines, and ex-Apple AI researchers Yao-Hung Hubert Tsai and Wei-Cheng Kuo, providing the crucial AI and machine learning expertise needed to build sophisticated, intelligent tools.

In a conversation with TechCrunch regarding the startup's vision and recent funding round, Michael LoFaso articulated Cheehoos ambition. He stated that Cheehoo aims to be a leader in providing studios and individual creators with the tools they need to efficiently bring their animation projects to life. "What we found through Rideback is that in Hollywood, the process of creating animation was getting expensive and complex," LoFaso explained, highlighting the economic pressures and technical hurdles facing even established players. "It was starting to become tougher for creators to get their idea out in the world. We wanted to create a tool that was native to the workflows of creators and make their lives easier." This focus on a "native" workflow is key, suggesting an approach that integrates seamlessly with existing industry-standard software and practices rather than forcing artists to adopt entirely new paradigms.

The core promise of Cheehoo lies in its ability to provide creators with a way to prototype and iterate on animation rapidly. Traditional workflows involve sequential steps, and going back to an earlier stage often means re-doing work downstream. Cheehoo's tools are designed to break down these linear barriers, enabling artists to quickly test ideas and make changes without the prohibitive time and cost penalties typically associated with revisions. This rapid iteration capability is crucial for creative exploration and refinement, allowing directors and artists to explore multiple options for a scene or sequence before committing to a final version.

Beyond just speeding up the creative iteration, Cheehoo aims to simplify many of the technical and logistical headaches that plague animation production. Their tools help with tasks that, while necessary, often pull artists away from creative work. This includes automating or assisting with data annotation, which is often required for training custom tools or organizing complex scene assets; file conversions between different software packages or formats; and maintaining format consistency across a project, ensuring that assets and sequences are compatible as they move through various stages of the pipeline. By handling these more tedious or technical tasks, Cheehoo allows creators to focus more of their energy on the artistic aspects of animation, moving more fluidly and efficiently between different steps of the production process.

Cheehoo Raises $10 Million to Revolutionize Animation Production with AI, and a significant part of this revolution comes from their intelligent integration capabilities. Recognizing that studios and artists have invested heavily in existing infrastructure and software, Cheehoos workflow is built to integrate seamlessly with industry-standard platforms such as Autodesk Maya and Unreal Engine. This means artists don't have to abandon their familiar tools. Instead, Cheehoo acts as an accelerator layer on top, allowing users to make changes within their preferred environment and see the results of those changes, potentially augmented or accelerated by AI, right away. This non-disruptive integration strategy is vital for adoption within established production pipelines.

A key aspect of Cheehoo's design philosophy, and one that is particularly important to artists, is the emphasis on creative control. While the platform leverages AI to assist and accelerate, users retain the ability to turn AI features on or off, allowing them to take more direct control of the editing process when needed. This hybrid approach ensures that AI serves as a co-pilot or assistant, enhancing efficiency, rather than a black box that dictates creative outcomes. Cheehoo employs in-house AI models specifically trained to assist with foundational tasks like character and asset creation, potentially speeding up the initial stages of building a scene. Furthermore, the platform is designed to be open, letting users integrate third-party models from leading AI research companies like OpenAI, Runway, and others. This flexibility allows creators to leverage specialized AI capabilities for tasks such as post generation (e.g., automatically generating variations of a sequence), motion stylization (applying different animation styles), and scene composition (assisting with layout and staging), further expanding the range of creative possibilities and efficiencies available within the toolset.

While Cheehoo didnt announce specific launch partners at the time of the funding news, the company confirmed that it is already actively working with several prominent IP holders, animation studios, and individual creators. This suggests that their tools are already being tested and validated in real-world production environments, gathering valuable feedback to refine the platform. The recent $10 million funding round, led by Greycroft with participation from Point72 Ventures, Basis Set, Headline Asia, Powerhouse Capital, Playground Productions, and Rideback itself, provides Cheehoo with significant resources to continue developing its technology, expand its team, and bring its tools to market.

Brentt Baltimore, a principal at Greycroft, commented on the venture firm's decision to lead the investment. He noted that Greycroft has a standing inclination to make investments in companies that are forging "new age" media tools and approaches. Baltimore expressed confidence that Cheehoo possesses the optimal combination of expertise drawing from Hollywood production realities, media landscape understanding, and deep technology DNA required to effectively solve the complex problems inherent in animation pipelines. This blend of practical industry experience and cutting-edge technical know-how is often cited as a critical factor for success in developing tools for creative industries.

Baltimore elaborated on the potential impact he sees Cheehoo having on the industry. "Cheehoo has an opportunity to reduce the cost of animation production overall," he stated in an interview. This potential cost reduction is significant because it can democratize access to high-quality animation. "That means it can have sophisticated creators easily create animation films without having an expensive studio setup," Baltimore added. He highlighted how the company is leveraging AI to achieve this: "Using AI, the company is trying to put enterprise or big studio-level workflows into a tool enabling independent filmmakers to individuals to be creative with animation features." This is a crucial point Cheehoo isn't just building tools for the largest studios; they aim to make powerful, efficient workflows accessible to a much broader range of creators, including smaller studios and independent artists who previously might have been priced out of high-end animation. Crucially, Baltimore also noted that Cheehoo is "doing all this while providing creative control to users, which creatives have always wanted." This reinforces the idea that the AI is designed to empower, not replace, the artist's vision.

Streamlining the Animation Pipeline: How Cheehoo Aims to Accelerate Creative Production with AI is clearly the company's immediate focus, particularly targeting enterprise and prosumer markets studios, production companies, and professional individual artists. However, looking to the future, Michael LoFaso indicated that Cheehoo has ambitions beyond the professional realm. He mentioned the intention to eventually roll out more consumer-focused products. This potential move into the consumer space could position Cheehoo to compete with other startups that are also building tools aimed at simplifying aspects of animation production, potentially targeting a wider user base. This includes companies like Accel-backed Cartwheel and Naver-backed Cinamon, which are also exploring ways to make animation creation more accessible through technology, though potentially with different approaches or target markets.

The challenges in animation production are significant, stemming from complex technical processes and the demanding nature of creative iteration. Cheehoo, with its unique blend of Hollywood and tech leadership, is entering the market with a clear vision: to leverage AI to make high-quality animation production faster, more affordable, and more accessible. By integrating with existing workflows, providing intuitive tools for rapid prototyping and iteration, automating tedious tasks, and importantly, preserving creative control, Cheehoo aims to empower a new generation of animation creators. The $10 million funding round validates investor confidence in their approach and the market opportunity. As Cheehoo develops its platform and potentially expands into the consumer market, it will be fascinating to see how it competes with other players like Cartwheel and Cinamon and how successfully it can truly transform the animation pipeline, allowing more stories to leap from imagination to the screen.