Spire Animation Studios Closes $20M Funding Round With Strategic Investment By Epic Games

Spire Animation Studios has closed a $20 million funding round that includes a strategic investment from Epic Games. It said the fresh funds are earmarked for staff expansion, studio technology and infrastructure build out and creative development. Epic will also join Spire’s board of directors.

The collaboration will see Epic’s Unreal Engine, an advanced real-time 3D creation tool, integrated with Spire’s feature animation pipeline. That will “enable Spire to produce the highest quality animated visual content with stronger collaboration and higher efficiency while simultaneously building out worlds and experiences for the metaverse,” the announcement said. The first project is Spire’s animated feature, Trouble, in collaboration with Danny McBride’s Rough House Pictures. That’s currently in development, along with another project called Century Goddess.

Epic is joining Spire alongside existing investor Connect Ventures, an investment partnership formed by Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and New Enterprise Associates (NEA).

Spire Animation Studios was co-founded by Brad Lewis, producer of Ratatouille, and entrepreneur P.J. Gunsagar.

“The talented team at Spire has decades of experience and their work has captivated audiences around the world with heartfelt storytelling and inspiring characters,” said Kim Libreri, CTO of Epic Games. “They are at the cutting edge of animation and together we will push the state of the art in metaverse entertainment.”

“Meta-distribution, where audiences engage with stories before, during and after film release, has disruptive potential,” said Gunsagar. “Audiences will live and interact authentically and persistently with characters and worlds without having to wait years after a movie’s release. Story-living through VR, AR and metaverse experiences is the future.”

Lewis said the engine provides an “intimate and intuitive filmmaking process, leading to better visuals and stories … Unreal Engine will bring new inspired voices to feature animation.”

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