Cartwheel's 3D animation platform generates rigged 3D characters from text and video, and is backed by $10M from Craft, WndrCo, and Khosla.
Cartwheel, a new 3D animation company founded by OpenAI scientist Andrew Carr and former Google creative director Jonathan Jarvis, has come out of stealth with a browser-based animation platform designed to dramatically accelerate the creation of character animation for games, films, advertising, and social content. The company also announced a $10 million funding round led by Craft Ventures, bringing its total raised to $15.6 million.
“There’s this core frustration animators face with today’s software,” Carr told me. “You need huge teams and weeks of effort to do things that should be fast. We wanted to solve that.” Carr previously worked at OpenAI on code generation tools and saw the potential for language models to unlock animation workflows. Jarvis, a designer who helped launch Google Creative Lab and later led the animation-focused studio Universal Pattern. He and Carr started the company together in 2023.
Cartwheel also includes a character generator trained on licensed 3D assets. Users can upload sketches or models and receive rigged characters in return. The founders were adamant about the importance of training on paid, ethically sourced data, especially as legal scrutiny mounts around AI training practices.Cartwheel enters a growing field that includes Anything World and Wonder Dynamics.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
OpenAI restructure plan gets SoftBank blessing as AI startup reportedly renegotiates Microsoft termsThe SoftBank CFO said OpenAI’s planned restructuring with the nonprofit keeping control is something that was expected.
Read more »
OpenAI in talks to pay about $3 billion to acquire AI coding startup WindsurfOpenAI is in talks to buy Windsurf, an artificial intelligence tool for coding help, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Read more »
Tokenized Stock Startup Dinari Raises $12.7M Series A Led by Hack VC, Blockchange VenturesThe company allows firms to offer users the ability to buy shares in major U.S. companies and funds through dShares, backed by real shares.
Read more »
OpenAI reverses course and says its nonprofit will continue to control its businessOpenAI is reversing course and said Monday its nonprofit will continue to control the business that makes ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence products. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the chair of OpenAI’s nonprofit board, Bret Taylor, said the board made the decision for the nonprofit to retain control of OpenAI.
Read more »
SoftBank, OpenAI’s $100B investment delayed due to tariffs: reportIt’s been three months since SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son and OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman promised during a White House briefing to swiftly deploy $100 billion, and raise that figure to $500 billion o…
Read more »
OpenAI's shakeup plan gets SoftBank's nod — all eyes now on MicrosoftThe SoftBank CFO said OpenAI’s planned restructuring with the nonprofit keeping control is something that was expected.
Read more »