Virtual Content Startup Huiye Technology Secures Pre-A+ Round Financing
AI-generated content (AIGC) services provider Huiye Technology announced on October 10 that it has completed a pre-A+ round of financing led by GL Ventures and followed by Shunwei Capital. The funds will be used to refine products, lower barriers to virtual content production, expand the team, and attract more customers.
In January this year, Huiye Technology completed pre-A round financing led by Shunwei capital. Its angel round financing was led by Cyanhill Capital.
Huiye Technology has created a set of “generative deep neural network frameworks,” based on which virtual characters can learn human movement patterns. Without the need for a real person to capture movement, operators can input a piece of music into the system, then the virtual character will automatically dance according to the melody. Founder Qu Siyuan calls it a solution to “empower virtual people to interact and perform.”
The traditional animation production mode requires professional animators and software and hardware, but AIGC can greatly reduce the threshold for creating virtual content. “We’re targeting creators who don’t yet have the ability to create virtual content entirely on their own. They can generate basic or complex 3D action content through our product,” Qu said.
However, Qu believes that AIGC will not replace traditional animation production and live action capturing. “In terms of efficiency, human beings are not the rival of AI,” said the entrepreneur. “AI can quickly generate 2,000 dances from 2,000 songs, but live action capturing can take two or three years. It looks like AI won, but professional animation itself requires manual artistic processing, and it is difficult for AI to generate this kind of movement.”
Huiye Technology has now opened a web version of AIGC tools for customers to test. In terms of its business model, Huiye hopes to provide services to companies that need to create virtual characters. At the same time, Huiye has also launched its own virtual characters, including digital DJs, fitness trainers and brand spokespersons.
This year, Huiye Technology has expanded its technology stack according to customer needs, including AI-assisted modeling and automatic binding of AI, and optimized algorithms for virtual models’ walking, displaying goods and other actions.
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The Huiye Technology team includes researchers from Tsinghua University, Wuhan University, ByteDance, and Alibaba, as well as artists from the China Academy of Art, the Academy of Arts and Design at Tsinghua University, and the Hubei Institute of Fine Arts. It has launched products and services to customers such as shoe brand Belle, BMW, Ant Group, and entertainment social platform Starmaker.
