Cartwheel AI Secures $5.6 Million Seed Funding to Advance Text-to-Motion 3D Animation

Cartwheel AI, a pioneering company in text-to-motion 3D animation, recently announced securing $5.6 million in seed funding. Co-founded by former OpenAI scientist Andrew Carr and product designer Jonathan Jarvis, the startup aims to revolutionize the animation industry by making character movement creation significantly faster and more accessible. The collaboration between the founders was notably facilitated by OpenAI, as revealed by Carr on social media.

Andrew Carr, who previously worked on the Codex project at OpenAI, had been exploring the potential of AI in 3D animation independently. His vision for a tool that could generate editable 3D motion from text led him to depart from OpenAI to pursue the idea. As Carr stated in a recent tweet, > "OpenAI tried to hire him to do product and design work, he pitched them the exact idea I had just left to work on. They introduced us and the rest is history." This introduction brought together Carr and Jonathan Jarvis, an experienced animator who had independently conceived a similar concept, forming the foundation of Cartwheel AI in 2022.

Cartwheel AI's core offering allows users to generate basic yet fluid 3D character animations simply by typing descriptions. Unlike generative video tools that produce uneditable pixels, Cartwheel outputs manipulable 3D motion data, which can be exported to standard 3D editing suites like Maya or Blender for further refinement. This innovative approach significantly reduces the time and effort traditionally required for elementary animation tasks, enabling artists to focus on more complex and creative aspects of their work.

The recently closed $5.6 million seed round was led by Accel, a prominent venture capital firm. Additional participation came from notable investors including Khosla Ventures, Human Ventures, Heretic VC, MVP Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Pelion VC, and a consortium of angel investors. This substantial investment underscores confidence in Cartwheel AI's unique technology and its potential to disrupt the traditional animation workflow.

Cartwheel AI positions itself not as a replacement for animators, but as a powerful tool to empower them, addressing the industry's high demand for animated content and the prohibitive costs associated with traditional methods. Jonathan Jarvis, Cartwheel's CEO, emphasized that the platform helps animators quickly translate ideas into motion, allowing for rapid iteration and creative control. The company envisions a future where animation becomes more ubiquitous, accessible to a broader range of creators, from individual artists to large studios.

With its ethically sourced motion capture data and efficient model architecture, Cartwheel AI is poised to expand its capabilities beyond humanoids to include other character types and camera movements. The company's strategy focuses on building a platform-agnostic tool that integrates seamlessly into existing animation pipelines, ultimately aiming to lower the barrier to entry for high-quality 3D animation and foster a new era of creative output.