LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Wonder Dynamics, a startup developing AI powered production tools, announced today it has raised $9 million in what it called a “highly strategic” Series A round. The funding was led by Horizons Ventures with participation from Epic Games and Samsung Next.
Existing backers Founders Fund and MaC Venture Capital returned to participate in the round, which brings Wonder Dynamics’ total amount raised over the past eight months to $11.5M, including their $2.5M seed round announced earlier this year.
“We are very excited to lead this round for Wonder Dynamics to support Nikola and Tye’s vision,” said Jonathan Tam from Horizons Ventures. “Wonder Dynamics’ AI-powered platform will significantly improve on cost and speed for media production and post-production, but more importantly, will enable creators to explore and generate new digital experiences that we never could have imagined.”
The funds will be used to expand the team of machine learning engineers and CG artists in order to expedite the development of Wonder AI Suite – an AI driven, cloud-based content creation platform. The foundation of the platform is designed to bring blockbuster-level VFX to creators of all levels, but the potential of its applications extends well beyond visual effects.
“As we got deeper into our development we knew that this could be more than just software for Visual Effects,” said Tye Sheridan, Co-Founder and President of Wonder Dynamics. “Our platform can be used for film and TV, but also video games, social media content, and even the Metaverse. This is why we were so excited to bring strategic partners like Epic Games and Samsung into this round, who are leaders in these fields.”
“We’re excited about Wonder Dynamics’ innovative approach to content creation that both empowers professional users and democratizes high quality content creation for a broader group of artists,” said Vlad Mastilovic, Vice President, Digital Humans Technology at Epic Games. “We look forward to deepening our relationship with Wonder Dynamics and exploring ways to collaborate across our Digital Humans efforts.”
Wonder Dynamics has been keeping the details of what they’re developing mostly under wraps, but they have shared that they plan to reveal their technology to the public during SXSW 2022. The platform is expected to launch in 2022.
Joe Russo, Avengers: Endgame director, who is a part of an already impressive advisory board, shared his enthusiasm for the technology and new partners: “I personally cannot wait to see how this technology will impact the future for filmmakers. It’s incredibly exciting, and there is so much opportunity on the horizon. I’m happy to support the team at Wonder Dynamics in their mission of putting artists first and doing so by surrounding themselves with investment partners that share the same interests.”
Wonder Dynamics’ Advisory Board includes Joshua Baer (Founder & CEO – Capital Factory), Terry Dougas (Rhea Films), Angjoo Kanazawa (Assistant Prof. at Berkeley, Research Scientist at Google), Joe Russo (Director, Avengers: Endgame), Robert Schwab (private equity investor), Steven Spielberg (Director, Producer), Antonio Torralba (Head of AI and Decision making at MIT), and Gregory Trattner (President, Film Finances Inc.).
“We strongly believe that art shouldn’t be dependent on socio-economic status. AI and Machine Learning are tools that can bring us closer to making storytelling accessible to anyone,” said Nikola Todorovic, Co-Founder and CEO of Wonder Dynamics. “The future of art that we at Wonder Dynamics want to be a part of is the one with Empowered Artists – and that future is just around the corner.”
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