Latest news with #WillemDemmers
Forbes
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Motorica Raises $5.4 Million To Replace Mocap With Generative AI
Every action a character can take must be animated beforehand. Motion capture has long been one of the most expensive and labor-intensive parts of AAA game development. From booking studio time to cleaning data, the process can take weeks and cost studios tens of millions of dollars for a AAA game. A Stockholm-based startup, Motorica, wants to change that. Emerging from stealth today with €5 million ($5.4 million) in seed funding, the company offers a generative AI platform that dramatically accelerates character animation, allowing studios to bypass traditional mocap without sacrificing quality or control. Founder Willem Demmers. 'Studios today spend millions creating realistic animation—and still often only fully animate one character,' said CEO Willem Demmers. 'With our tech, they can animate a hundred.' Demmers, a serial founder in creative tech, partnered with generative AI researcher Gustav Henter and mocap veteran Simon Alexanderson to bring the company's 2019 research prototype to market. The result is what Motorica calls 'motion synthesis': a transformer-based AI model trained on thousands of hours of proprietary motion capture, capable of generating high-fidelity character animation at scale. According to the company, studios using the platform have reported animation workflows running up to 200 times faster than traditional mocap pipelines, with cost reductions exceeding 90 percent. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder David Peterson, partner at Angular Ventures, which led the round, said, 'We invested in Motorica because they're building foundational technology for the next wave of digital experiences—from games and virtual worlds to robotics and XR. Their platform solves a massive production bottleneck.' That bottleneck is well known in the industry. Red Dead Redemption 2 reportedly required more than 300,000 unique animations and cost an estimated $300 million to develop. Developers commonly cite animation as one of the most time-consuming and expensive parts of production. For large open-world games, animation alone can represent 10 to 30 percent of the total budget. Mocap the old fashioned way. Veteran animator Maxi Keller, whose credits include The Last of Us Part II and Call of Duty: WWII, called Motorica 'the best tool out there for locomotion and motion matching.' He emphasized the platform's ability to give creators precise control over speed, acceleration, and expressive nuance, key requirements in gameplay animation. Demmers is careful to position the tool as augmentative rather than disruptive. 'We're not replacing animators or actors,' he said. 'We're replacing their chores.' According to the company, traditional workflows allocate 70 percent of animation time to technical tasks like keyframing and filler cycles. Motorica flips that ratio, allowing artists to focus on narrative, character, and creative polish. The funding round includes participation from Luminar Ventures and angel investors in the gaming space, including founders of major Swedish studios Avalon and Fatshark. The company, which now has 21 employees—over half of them AI researchers—plans to expand rapidly. Roadmap priorities include SDKs for deeper engine integration, new datasets for stylized and non-humanoid motion, and strategic partnerships with virtual production studios and simulation platforms.
Miami Herald
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Motorica Raises €5M to Lead the Generative AI Revolution in Character Animation
Trusted by top-tier AAA studios and animators, Motorica delivers production-ready motion synthesis at 200x speed, with no compromise on quality or control STOCKHOLM, SE / ACCESS Newswire / June 24, 2025 / Motorica, the global pioneer in Generative AI for character animation and motion synthesis, today announced the close of a €5 million seed funding round, led by Angular Ventures, with participation from Luminar Ventures. The funding will support Motorica's rapid expansion, scaling of its proprietary AI platform and continued investment in R&D to shape the future of instant character animation. Motorica's technology is already being used in live production environments by world-leading AAA studios to deliver production-ready animation at unprecedented speed and scale. In early deployments, studios have reported up to a 99% reduction in animation time, achieving animation workflows that are 200x faster than the traditional motion capture to gameplay animation workflow - without sacrificing creative control, quality, or pipeline compatibility. "Motorica is a breakthrough in game development and animation technology that will help to bring forth the next era of gaming, enabling digital Living Worlds that are populated by dynamic, lifelike characters that will make gameplay a truly immersive and interactive experience," said Willem Demmers, CEO of Motorica. "But unlike other AI developments, we're not here to upend the animation workflow. We're here to liberate it. Traditionally, animators spend 70% of their time on technical grunt work and only 30% on actual creative performance. Motorica flips that. By automating the grind - things like tedious keyframing for basic locomotion - we let creators focus on what matters: storytelling, emotion, and innovation. That shift helps studios move faster, push quality higher, and ship with less friction." Maxi Keller, animator for titles including "The Last of Us: Part II" and "Call of Duty: WWll," shared, "Motorica is the best tool out there for locomotion animation and Motion Matching. It delivers better, more consistent results than mocap as they give you exact control on acceleration and target speed, and more." Solving the Hardest Problem in Game and Virtual Production Pipelines Character animation, especially for interactive media like games and virtual production, has traditionally required a significant amount of manual work, from in-studio MoCap shoots and reshoots to manual keyframing and repetitive cycles. Studios face a fundamental trade-off between speed and cost versus realism and scale. Motorica removes that trade-off. Motorica's platform is built to generate realistic, responsive, diverse animation at scale. The system integrates industry-standard tools and workflows, offering full compatibility with DCC software and game engines, including Unreal Engine, Maxon Cinema 4D, Maya, Unity and Blender. Advanced capabilities include support for motion matching, enabling lifelike animation for large numbers of characters in complex gameplay scenarios. Motorica Highlights: Massive acceleration in animation production. One studio estimated three years of animation can be completed in just four expressive and stylistically diverse characters, generated using smaller cost savings on accelerated mocap sessions and post-processing. Built on Breakthrough Research and Proprietary Datasets Motorica's core IP is built on years of academic innovation, beginning with the 2019 research breakthrough by top researchers Gustav Henter and Simon Alexanderson, who developed the world's first deep generative model for motion synthesis - effectively pioneering generative AI for character animation. Founded in 2020 to prototype this research, Motorica officially broke stealth in 2023, when Gustav and Simon teamed up with serial founder Willem Demmers to bring the company to market - turning their pioneering prototype into a commercially viable product. Motorica owns and operates a state-of-the-art motion capture studio in Stockholm and has built one of the largest and most refined proprietary motion datasets in the world, captured with professional actors to ensure biomechanical realism and cinematic performance. With this foundation, Motorica stands alone as the only generative AI provider currently delivering AAA-quality animation at scale and as the category leader in the emerging space of motion synthesis. "We invested in Motorica because they're not just reimagining animation - they're building foundational technology that will power the next wave of digital experiences," said David Peterson, Partner at Angular Ventures. "This platform has the potential to influence everything from how characters move in games and virtual worlds to how machines understand and replicate human motion in robotics, XR, and beyond. Their deep research roots, execution strength, and early adoption from industry leaders make Motorica a category-defining company." With seed funding secured, Motorica plans to accelerate its product roadmap and scale customer adoption across key verticals. Near-term initiatives include: Expanding integrations via SDKs and APIs to make Motorica even more plug-and-play for game studios, cinematics and virtual production the company's data infrastructure and motion library, adding tools for controllable motion within fighting, sports, and stylized strategic partnerships with game engines, simulation platforms, and large scale VFX across engineering, animation, data, and customer success. Artist Commitment Motorica's team is committed to augmenting creativity, not automating it away. Rapidly emerging as the industry standard for high-quality motion synthesis, the platform is designed in close collaboration with professional animators, game developers, and technical directors to enhance artistic workflows and eliminate bottlenecks. Rather than replacing human creativity, Motorica's tools eliminate chores - such as character locomotion and filler cycles - allowing creative teams to focus on performance, narrative, and style. Download the Motorica media kit here. About Motorica Motorica is a Stockholm-based AI company focused on generative animation for 3D character motion. Founded to address the growing demand for scalable, high-quality animation, Motorica develops technology that combines machine learning, motion capture, and compatible solutions for industry tools such as motion matching. Press Contact Megan Fasymegan@ (617) 480-3674 ### SOURCE: Motorica
