Animation is one of the most intricate and time-consuming forms of storytelling, demanding careful coordination across storyboarding, rendering, composition, and lighting to bring even a single scene to life. Traditionally, if a director wanted to tweak a scene, entire teams would need to revisit multiple steps—an expensive and labor-intensive process.
Cheehoo, a newly launched AI animation startup, is setting out to change that. Founded by a team of Hollywood veterans and AI technologists, Cheehoo aims to make animated content creation faster, more accessible, and more affordable. The company has just raised $10 million in funding, led by Greycroft, with additional participation from Point72 Ventures, Basis Set, Headline Asia, Powerhouse Capital, Playground Productions, and Rideback.
Born out of production company Rideback—the creative force behind The Lego Movie franchise—Cheehoo’s founding team includes Rideback co-CEOs Michael LoFaso and Jonathan Eirich, Rideback founder Dan Lin, former DreamWorks Animation President Chris deFaria, and ex-Apple AI researchers Hubert Tsai and Wei-Cheng Kuo.
In an interview with Voke, Michael LoFaso explained the inspiration behind Cheehoo:
“We found through Rideback that creating animation was becoming increasingly expensive and complex. It was getting harder for creators to get their ideas into the world. Our goal with Cheehoo is to create tools that fit naturally into existing workflows and make creators’ lives easier”
Cheehoo’s platform is designed to help studios and independent creators rapidly prototype and iterate animated content. Its suite of AI-powered tools supports data annotation, file conversion, format consistency, and more—eliminating many tedious tasks and enabling quicker creative decisions.
One of Cheehoo’s standout features is its seamless integration with widely used platforms like Maya and Unreal Engine. Creators can make animation changes and immediately preview results, a drastic improvement over traditional workflows. Users can also toggle AI features on and off, maintaining full creative control as they see fit.
Cheehoo’s proprietary AI models assist with character and asset creation, while integrations with third-party AI providers like OpenAI and Runway help power post generation, motion stylization, and scene composition.
While Cheehoo has not officially announced any launch partners, the company confirmed it is actively collaborating with multiple IP holders, studios, and independent creators.
Brentt Baltimore, principal at Greycroft, said Cheehoo represents exactly the kind of “new age media” innovation his firm looks for.
“Cheehoo has a unique blend of Hollywood, media, and tech DNA that’s essential for modernizing animation pipelines,” Baltimore noted.
“Their tools could dramatically reduce the cost of producing animated films, empowering sophisticated creators and even independent filmmakers to bring high-quality animation projects to life—without needing a massive studio infrastructure. Plus, giving users control over creative inputs is exactly what today’s storytellers demand”
Looking ahead, Cheehoo plans to broaden its reach. While the company is currently focused on serving studios and professional creators, it intends to launch more consumer-facing products in the near future. This expansion could see Cheehoo competing with other AI-driven animation startups like Cartwheel and Cinamon, which are similarly aiming to simplify and democratize the animation process.
With an elite founding team, robust AI capabilities, and fresh funding, Cheehoo is poised to become a major force in the next generation of animated content creation.
