Cheehoo, Born from Rideback and Fueled by $10M, Aims to Demolish Animation Production Bottlenecks with AI

Creating animation is an art form, a technical challenge, and, perhaps most significantly, a monumental exercise in patience and resource allocation. For anyone who has peered behind the curtain of a major animated production, the sheer scale of effort involved in bringing even a single scene to life is staggering. It is a process that demands meticulous attention across multiple specialized domains, each requiring significant time, skill, and computational power. From the initial spark of an idea captured in a storyboard to the final polished frame, the journey is fraught with steps that are inherently time-consuming and resistant to rapid change.

Consider the foundational elements: storyboarding translates script into visual sequences, providing the initial blueprint. This is followed by layout and pre-visualization, blocking out camera angles and character movements. Then comes modeling, rigging, and texturing building the characters and environments in digital space. The animation itself involves painstakingly posing and moving characters frame by frame or using complex motion capture data. Lighting artists craft the mood and atmosphere, while visual effects specialists add dynamic elements like fire, water, or explosions. Finally, rendering transforms the complex 3D data into 2D images, a process that can take hours per frame depending on complexity. Composition then layers all these elements together, followed by color correction and final mastering.

Each of these steps is crucial, and a change in one can necessitate significant rework in others. If a director decides a characters expression needs tweaking, an entire sequence might need re-animating. If a lighting setup isn't quite right, rendering needs to be redone. If a camera angle shifts, layout, animation, and potentially even modeling might require adjustments. This iterative loop, while essential for creative refinement, becomes a bottleneck, adding immense cost and delaying production schedules. Experimenting with different takes for a scene a fundamental part of the creative process in live-action filmmaking becomes an expensive luxury in traditional animation, requiring animation teams to go back, tweak things, re-render, and recompose before the scene can even be considered for finalization.

It is out of this crucible of complexity and cost that Cheehoo, a startup founded by a unique blend of seasoned Hollywood executives and cutting-edge technologists, has emerged. Cheehoo is not just another software company; it positions itself as a potential savior for creators grappling with the inherent friction of the animation pipeline. Their ambitious goal is to leverage the power of AI to fundamentally alter the economics and workflow of animated content production, making it easier, faster, and more accessible for creatives of all stripes to bring their visions to life.

The genesis of Cheehoo is deeply rooted in the realities of major studio production. The startup was born out of the production company Streamlining the Animation Pipeline: How Cheehoo Aims to Accelerate Creative Production with AI. Rideback, which boasts an impressive track record that includes producing the wildly successful *Lego Movie* franchise, understands the challenges of scaling animation firsthand. Ridebacks co-CEOs, Michael LoFaso and Jonathan Eirich, are integral parts of Cheehoos founding team, alongside Rideback co-founder Dan Lin. Their presence signals a deep understanding of the industry's pain points and a commitment to building solutions that are genuinely useful in a production environment. This Hollywood pedigree is complemented by significant technological firepower, with other founding members including former president of DreamWorks Animation Chris deFaria, another industry veteran, and crucially, ex-Apple AI researchers Yao-Hung Hubert Tsai and Wei-Cheng Kuo. This combination of creative leadership, production experience, and high-level AI expertise forms a potent foundation for tackling such an ambitious problem.

In a conversation with TechCrunch, LoFaso articulated the core motivation behind Cheehoo's creation. He highlighted the escalating costs and complexity that were beginning to stifle creative output within the industry. "What we found through Rideback is that in Hollywood, the process of creating animation was getting expensive and complex," LoFaso said. "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 emphasis on integrating seamlessly into existing pipelines, rather than forcing creators into entirely new ecosystems, is a critical distinction and one that could significantly impact adoption rates within established studios.

Cheehoos suite of tools is designed explicitly to provide creators with the ability to prototype and iterate on animation rapidly, a stark contrast to the slow, sequential nature of traditional methods. They target some of the most tedious and time-consuming tasks that act as bottlenecks in the pipeline. This includes assistance with data annotation, the often-laborious process of labeling datasets crucial for training AI models or preparing assets. They also address file conversions and format consistency, perennial headaches in complex pipelines involving multiple software packages and external vendors. By automating or accelerating these foundational tasks, Cheehoo aims to allow creators to move between different steps of the animation process with unprecedented speed and fluidity.

A key aspect of the Cheehoo workflow is its ability to integrate with industry-standard platforms like Autodesk Maya or Unreal Engine. This integration is crucial; studios have built massive infrastructures and accumulated years of expertise around these tools. Cheehoo isn't asking them to abandon their investment but rather enhancing it. The platform allows users to make changes in animation or scene setup and, critically, see the results right away. This rapid feedback loop is revolutionary compared to waiting hours for renders. Furthermore, Cheehoo offers granular control: creators can turn AI features on or off, deciding when to leverage automation and when to take manual control of the editing process. This flexibility is vital for creatives who value artistic intent and often view AI as a tool to assist, not replace, their craft.

The AI capabilities within Cheehoo are multifaceted. The company utilizes in-house AI models specifically trained to assist with character and asset creation, potentially speeding up the initial stages of building the digital world. Beyond their proprietary models, Cheehoo understands the value of the broader AI ecosystem. Their platform allows users to integrate third-party models from leading AI companies like OpenAI, Runway, and others. This integration capability opens up a vast array of possibilities for tasks such as post generation (creating images or sequences from prompts), motion stylization (applying different animation styles to existing motion data), and scene composition (intelligently arranging elements within a shot). This open approach ensures that Cheehoo can evolve rapidly by incorporating the latest advancements from the wider AI research community.

While Cheehoo didnt announce specific launch partners, the company stated that it is already working with several major IP holders, studios, and creators. This suggests that the platform is being developed and tested in real-world production environments, a positive sign for its eventual efficacy and market fit. The validation from the investment community is also significant. Cheehoo recently raised $10 million in funding, a substantial sum for a seed or early-stage round, signaling strong investor confidence in their vision and team. The round was led by Greycroft, a venture capital firm with a keen interest in media and technology, with participation from a diverse group of investors including Point72 Ventures, Basis Set, Headline Asia, Powerhouse Capital, Playground Productions, and notably, Rideback itself, reinforcing its commitment to the spin-off.

Brentt Baltimore, a principal at Greycroft, elaborated on his firm's investment thesis regarding Cheehoo. He stated that Greycroft has consistently been inclined to make investments in companies that create "new age" media, recognizing the transformative potential of technology in creative industries. Baltimore expressed strong confidence in Cheehoo's founding team, highlighting what he sees as the optimal blend of experience necessary to tackle the complex problems in animation pipelines. He believes their mix of Hollywood production knowledge, media industry savvy, and deep technology DNA positions them uniquely to succeed where others might falter.

Baltimore further emphasized the potential economic impact of Cheehoo's technology. "Cheehoo has an opportunity to reduce the cost of animation production overall," Baltimore said in an interview. This cost reduction isn't just about saving money for big studios; it has the potential to democratize the creation of high-quality animated content. "That means it can have sophisticated creators easily create animation films without having an expensive studio setup," he added. He sees Cheehoo as a tool that can bring enterprise-level workflows, previously only accessible to large studios with massive budgets and infrastructure, within reach of independent filmmakers and even individual creators. "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." Importantly, Baltimore also echoed the sentiment about creative control, a common concern among artists regarding AI tools. He noted that Cheehoo is "also doing all this while providing creative control to users, which creatives have always wanted." This focus on empowering the artist, rather than replacing them, is likely to be key to gaining traction within the creative community.

Looking to the future, LoFaso indicated that while Cheehoo is currently focusing its efforts mainly on enterprises and prosumers the professional creators and studios already working in the animation space it has clear intentions to roll out more consumer-focused products down the line. This expansion could put Cheehoo in direct competition with other startups also building tools to simplify aspects of animation production. Two notable examples include Accel-backed Cartwheel and Naver-backed Cinamon. While the specific approaches of Cartwheel and Cinamon may differ, the broader market trend is clear: a push towards making animation creation more accessible, faster, and less resource-intensive, often leveraging AI and cloud-based technologies. Cheehoo's deep industry connections and robust funding round position it as a significant player in this evolving landscape.

In conclusion, Cheehoo represents a compelling confluence of industry expertise and technological innovation. Born from the practical challenges faced by a successful production company like Rideback and armed with a founding team that bridges the gap between Hollywood and Silicon Valley AI research, the company is poised to address some of the most significant bottlenecks in the animation pipeline. By leveraging AI to accelerate tedious tasks, enable rapid iteration, and integrate with existing workflows while maintaining creative control, Cheehoo aims to not only reduce the cost and complexity of animation but also potentially unlock new levels of creative freedom for artists at all levels. The $10 million funding round is a strong vote of confidence from investors who see the potential for Cheehoo to lead the charge in a new era of animation production.