Creating an animation is a time-consuming process that requires multiple steps, including storyboard, rendering, composition and lighting to create a scene. If the director wants to experiment with different attractions in a scene, the animation team must go back and adjust things before they can determine the scene.

Cheehoo, a startup made up of Hollywood executives and technicians, wants to create an AI-powered tool to make it easier for creatives to produce animated content.

The startup was born in production company Rideback, which produces the LEGO film series. Rideback’s Coos, Michael Lofaso and Jonathan Eirich are part of Cheehoo’s founding team, and Dan Lin, co-founder of Rideback. Other founding members include Chris Defaria, former president of Dreamworks animation, and former Apple AI researchers Hubert Tsai and Wei-Cheng Kuo.

In a conversation with TechCrunch, Lofaso said that Cheehoo hopes to bring a path to studios and creators to bring animation to life.

“What we found through cycling is that in Hollywood, the process of making animations has become increasingly expensive and complex,” Lofaso said. “It’s harder for creators to start posting their ideas in the world. We wanted to create a tool that is the tool for creators’ workflow and to make their lives easier.”

Cheehoo's tools provide creators with a way to prototype and iterate animations. They help accomplish tasks such as data annotation, file conversion, and format consistency, allowing creators to move between different steps of the animation process.

Cheehoo's workflow can be integrated with Maya or Unreal's existing platforms, allowing users to make changes to animations and view results immediately. Creators can turn AI features on or off to give more control over the editing process. Cheehoo uses internal AI models to assist role and asset creation, and also allows users to integrate third-party models from OpenAI, Runway, and other tasks such as late-stage, sports style and scene composition.

Cheehoo has not announced any launch partners, but the company said it has partnered with several IP holders, studios and creators. Cheehoo has raised $10 million in funding led by Greycroft and has been involved in Point72 Ventures, Bases Set, Title Asia, Powerhouse Capital, Playground Productions and Rideback.

Brentt Baltimore, head of Greycroft, said the venture capital firm has always tended to invest in companies that create "new era" media. He added that he believes Cheehoo has the right combination of Hollywood, media and technical DNA that can solve problems in the animation pipeline.

"Cheehoo has the opportunity to reduce overall animation production costs," Baltimore said in an interview. "This means it can have complex creators that can easily make animated movies without having expensive studio settings. Using (…) AI, the company is trying to put corporate or large studio-level workflows into tools that enable independent film producers to enable individuals to create animation capabilities. It can also provide users with all this creative control in order to provide users with creative control that creators need."

Lofaso looks to the future, and while Cheehoo is mainly working with businesses and manufacturers, it intends to launch more consumer-centric products. This may help Cheehoo compete with startups like accelerated support Cartwheel and Naver-backed Cinamon, which are also building tools to help simplify aspects of animation production.