AI Animation Startup Animaj Raises $85 Million In New Funding Round

AI can be a scary word in the animation industry, but what many fail to recognize is that it’s a broad umbrella term for a multitude of tools, pipelines, and production approaches.

Among the most innovative entrants into the animation space is Animaj, a company out of Paris and London that announced today it has closed a new funding round of $85 million. Cartoon Brew previously profiled the company at length in March.

This latest investment round was was led by HarbourView Equity Partners (USA) and Bpifrance Large Venture (France), the French national investment fund that plays a significant role in France’s tech and AI ecosystem. There was additional participation from JP Morgan, Bootstrap Europe, Left Lane Capital, XAnge, Daphni, and Marquee Ventures.

The amount raised is notable considering that prior to this round Animaj had already raised over $100 million. It’s also notable compared to other AI animation startups in the United States, like Cartwheel and Cheehoo, which have each raised in the neighborhood of $10 million.

This is largely because of how unique Animaj’s business model is compared to those of other startups. Animaj isn’t just developing tools for AI animation production, but it is also a content company that is acquiring prominent children’s IP. Therefore, it owns the content and can monetize anything that is produced using its software.

Its most prominent IP acquisition to date is the iconic Spanish preschool series Pocoyo, which it has relaunched on Youtube. Since it was founded in May 2022 by serial entrepreneur Sixte de Vauplane and former Google/YouTube executive Grégory Dray, Animaj has become the 5th largest digital kids’ player worldwide on YouTube (per data from Tubular Labs), with over 22 billion annual views and 240 million unique viewers per month. Its flagship property Pocoyo is now distributed across 100+ platforms, including Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, Spotify, and FAST channels.

The new funding will support the company’s growth and its goal of transforming children’s IP into global, multi-format franchises through a hybrid model combining AI-powered production with platform-native content development.

“We’re building something that’s never existed before,” Sixte de Vauplane, co-founder & CEO, said in a statement. “Animaj is a new kind of media company: data-driven, AI-powered, digital-first but multiplatform by design. We start where kids are — YouTube, Roblox, TikTok, Spotify — and we build from there.”

To achieve that, the company has developed a proprietary GenAI animation pipeline that significantly reduces production time and costs while preserving creative quality. In other words, it doesn’t look like other animation that is currently being made with AI.

Animaj’s system combines AI-driven sketch-to-pose prediction with a motion-in-betweening layer that ensures expressive animation while maintaining each character’s distinct style and tone. It uses Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) architecture to predict and apply rig controller values for each character in 3d animation software like Maya, allowing animators to refine outputs easily.

For more details on how the company’s tech works, read our interview with de Vauplane.

With the success of its Pocoyo relaunch, the company has already proven that its business model leads to results, but it has much bigger ambitions beyond just a single IP. “There’s an extraordinary pool of kids’ IP developed by independent studios and creators that hasn’t reached its full potential,” said Gregory Dray, co-founder & chief business officer. “With a modern, platform-native approach, we want to amplify these brands globally without compromising their creative DNA.”