Spire Animation Studios announced it has raised a $20 million funding round with a strategic investment from League of Legends maker Epic Games.
Previous investor Connect Ventures also contributed to the round. As part of the transaction, Spire Animation Studios’ board of directors will include Epic’s members.
The funds will be used for staff expansion, studio technology and infrastructure development, as well as creative development.
“Meta-distribution, where audiences engage with stories before, during and after film release, has disruptive potential,” said Spire CEO and co-founder PJ Gunsagar. “Audiences will live and interact authentically and persistently with characters and worlds without having to wait years after a movie’s release. Story-living through VR, AR and metaverse experiences is the future.”
The investment enables Epic’s Unreal Engine, a sophisticated real-time 3D creation tool, to be integrated with Spire’s animation platform. This will allow Spire to make the highest-quality animated visual content while also developing environments and experiences for the metaverse.
Epic Games CTO Kim Libreri commented: “The talented team at Spire has decades of experience, and their work has captivated audiences around the world with heartfelt storytelling and inspiring characters. They are at the cutting edge of animation, and together, we will push state of the art in metaverse entertainment.”
The first project from Spire is an animated movie, Trouble, which is being produced in partnership with Danny McBride’s Rough House Pictures. That film is now under production. There is another project in the pipeline called Century Goddess.
Epic is partnering with Spire and Connect Ventures, an investment company created by Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
Brad Lewis, the Ratatouille producer and entrepreneur PJ Gunsagar, established Spire Animation Studios.
In other news, Lost Lake Games, a game development studio, has secured $5 million in a seeding funding round led by Bitkraft Ventures.
Send your news to news@gamesround.com.
Don’t forget to share this post
