South Korean firm Naver Z is the mind behind the favored 3D-avatar app Zepeto. Today, the corporate introduced it made a strategic funding within the Danish animation and movement seize firm Rokoko. The mocap (movement seize) firm has greater than 50,000 customers all around the world, together with among the largest names within the biz, however the majority of its clients are rising indie creators who, till Rokoko got here alongside, had no inexpensive approach to make use of high-end movement seize and animation instruments.

With Rokoko’s mocap swimsuit and gloves and a complicated movement modifying software program suite, Rokoko’s ecosystem of instruments is a lifesaver for creators who should animate characters; with out having to make use of a specialised studio with cameras that seize the motion, the swimsuit itself tracks how the character is transferring and interprets that into actions that animators can use to animate their characters.

“We raised $3m as it was primarily a strategic round to bring Naver Z in, and then some of our previous investors wanted to follow up too,” mentioned Jonathan Jeffery, director of progress at Rokoko, in an electronic mail. “We were profitable the entirety of last year so didn’t have too much pressure on our back to raise a large round.”

The funding spherical values Rokoko at over $80 million, the corporate claims. The spherical was led by Naver Z, and the 2 current lead buyers, VF Venture and North-East Venture, each be part of the brand new spherical together with robotics specialist Thomas Visti (Universal Robots, MiR) and funding from new board member Brett Bibby.

“With this investment from Naver Z, we are joined by one of the strongest and fastest moving metaverse companies in the world, and our plans to expand our business into Asia just got supercharged,” Rokoko CEO and co-founder Jakob Balslev mentioned in an electronic mail to TechCrunch. “Naver Z is planning to open its Zepeto ecosystem to let animators monetize animations that they create using tools like the ones Rokoko offers.”

Motion seize is a kind of issues that may be eye-wateringly, fantastically costly, and really arduous to make use of with out skilled, in-depth information. It’s enjoyable to see applied sciences just like the Smartsuit Pro turning into extra obtainable, bringing mocap into vary even for superior amateurs and midrange productions.

The firm launched a promo video for its swimsuit some time again, and as an animation nerd, I’m psyched, so I’ll depart you with this: