VR studio Baobab received investment from Youku Frontier Technology Fund and raised US$31 million

On October 19, Beijing time, Youku Frontier Technology Fund announced that it would invest in Baobab, a top international VR animation content production studio. Baobab Studio was co-founded in 2015 by "Madagascar" director and screenwriter Eric Darnell and former Zynga executive Maureen Fan. The content it produces has won many awards.

Original title: VR studio Baobab received US$10 million in Series B financing. Youku Frontier Technology Fund participated in the investment.

Beijing time on October 19, it was reported that Youku Frontier Technology Fund announced that it would invest in Baobab, the top international VR animation content production studio. Baobab Studio was co-founded in 2015 by "Madagascar" director and screenwriter Eric Darnell and former Zynga executive Maureen Fan. The content it produces has won many awards.

As of today, Baobab has completed US$25 million in Series B financing and has received a total financing amount of US$31 million. In addition to Youku Frontier Technology Fund, new investors in this financing also include 20th Century Fox Films, Victoria Harbor Investment, Evolution Media Partners, SMG, and LDVPartners and other front-line funds in the film and technology industries.

Baobab Studio focuses on the production of VR content and aims to create compelling movie characters and plots that inspire naturally curious people to dream of a new world they had never imagined before. The studio's first VR animation work,"INVASION!" As soon as it was launched, it gained a good reputation. It achieved quite beautiful download results on content distribution platforms such as Oculus, Samsung, Within, and Hulu and was selected as "Selected Content". It also won the 2015 New York Tribeca International Film Festival."Special Choice Award" at the International Film Festival. In addition, the famous Next Markai Film Innovation Exhibition at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Cannes International Film Festival also received widespread attention and praise. Recently, Baobab also released "INVASITION!" The second work in the series,"ASTEROIDS!" The full version is scheduled to be officially released in 2017.

The full English name of Youku Frontier Technology Fund is Youku Global Media Fund, which was established in 2016. This is a cross-border high-tech cultural fund jointly established by Silicon Valley Huayan Capital and Youku. Since its establishment, it has actively deployed the four major sectors of VR/AR/artificial intelligence/cultural content, and many of the companies it has invested in have begun to show momentum in their respective segments.

While completing a new round of financing, Baobab is also expanding its management team. Baobab announced that Chris Milk, CEO of well-known VR film and television company Within, will join Baobab's authoritative expert advisory team, and well-known animation director Larry Cutler will serve as Baobab's CTO.

Chris is a well-known American VR entrepreneur, creator, director and producer. He has many years of experience in creativity and product innovation, and has won many industry awards. He boldly tried to incorporate interactive technology into VR works early on. In the future, Chris will provide content planning and creative support to Baobab Studio to help realize content creation and VR to produce more good works.

Larry served as technical director of Toy Story 2 and Monster Company, and later became global head of the character technology department of DreamWorks Animation. He was also a judge for the Academy Award for Technology Science and a co-founder of DigiPro. After joining Baobab, he will continue to leverage his expertise in animation technology.

Toby Zhang, partner of Youku Frontier Technology Fund, commented: "VR entertainment is not just about exploring outer space or fighting zombies. Baobab Studio creates an imaginary, happy and interactive home entertainment experience. We are very excited to work with Baobab and help them bring this new way of VR entertainment to the global market."

In addition, Mike Dunn, president of 20th Century Fox Film Company's Home Entertainment and Innovation Laboratory, also gave Baobab this comment: "Baobab Studios is an innovator in this field, and we very much look forward to working with them in the future."

Editor: Nancy