Los Angeles-based startup Cheehoo has raised $10 million to build what it describes as a “creative engine” for animation and interactive storytelling, putting advanced AI-enhanced workflows into the hands of artists, animators, and IP owners. The company was incubated at production company Rideback (“The LEGO Movie,” “Avatar: The Last Airbender”). The round was led by Point72 Ventures with participation by Greycroft, Basis Set, Headline Asia, and others.
Cheehoo’s founding leadership team blends Hollywood and Silicon Valley experience, including former DreamWorks Animation President Chris deFaria, AI scientists from Apple and Stanford, and Rideback Co-CEOs Michael LoFaso and Jonathan Eirich. Rideback founder Dan Lin is also a co-founder. The company’s early focus is on professional studios, IP holders, and select artists participating in a closed pilot program.
Cheehoo is building a modular platform designed to reduce the time, friction, and cost associated with animated content production. LoFaso, who remains co-CEO of Rideback while helping lead Cheehoo, described it as a flexible and nimble animation pipeline that maintains compatibility with industry-standard tools like Maya and Unreal Engine, while incorporating AI to accelerate processes that typically bog down production.
“Our sole focus is empowering artists,” LoFaso told me in an interview. “We’re trying to give them better tools — to eliminate the friction points that slow down iteration and prevent them from spending more time on the creative aspects of their work.”
Rather than scraping the internet for training data — a controversial tactic among some AI firms — Cheehoo generates its own proprietary 3D assets in-house and allows clients to retain ownership of anything they contribute. The system applies metadata to models and animation files, making it easier to search, repurpose, and build upon assets across projects. Over time, as studios and creators produce more with the platform, they generate a growing “data flywheel” that fuels further automation.
Cheehoo’s system can train mini-models on specific characters or projects using relatively small datasets compared to the massive corpuses typically needed to train pixel-based video generators. By focusing on 3D asset-based workflows, rather than pure video synthesis, the platform offers greater control and fidelity — a critical requirement for professional animation.
The company is initially targeting enterprises but has a long-term vision of opening the platform to smaller studios, prosumers, and eventually, user-generated content creators. In LoFaso’s view, the biggest immediate opportunity isn’t replacing traditional studios but helping creators meet the ever-increasing demand for frequent, serialized content across platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and streaming services.
“Studios spend years and tens of millions to produce one major animated feature,” LoFaso said. “But building a franchise today increasingly requires consistent, high-quality output — in addition to the big tentpole events.”
Cheehoo plans to announce its first creative partners and project slate later this year.
