Electric Sheep raised £393,000 in pre-seed funding in 2023

Electric Sheep VFX

Innovate UK has awards a £500,000 Smart Grant to AI rotoscoping company Electric Sheep.

The UK-based business, which launched in 2023 with £393,000 in pre-seed funding from the likes of Dasein Capital, Spatial Capital and Look AI Ventures, has a flagship cloud-native product, Spotlight, which aims to automate background removal, claiming to process one second of footage in less than a minute and outputting an editable layer that allows VFX artists to make key adjustments (known as splines).

It has now launched Spotlight V2, which claims to rotoscope 24 times faster than traditional methods, and has been used by post houses such as The Look. 

The grant will be used to create Spotlight V3, which hopes to to enhance the video segmentation process for, “VFX and beyond”. 

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Richie Murray, co-founder of Electric Sheep, said: “We want to make rotoscoping so easy that VFX artists can have their shots ready in a few clicks. We’re so pleased the UK government shares our vision for innovation in the creative industry. Rotoscoping is one of many time consuming and repetitive tasks faced by artists that gets in the way of creativity. We’re focusing on the tedious parts of the job, so artists can focus on telling spectacular stories.”

Angelo Burgarello, partner at pre-seed investor Look AI Ventures, added: “Artificial intelligence is not just a game-changer for the VFX industry; it’s a catalyst for a new era of creative efficiency and innovation. As investors, we see transformative potential in companies like Electric Sheep, whose technology is set to redefine production timelines and cost structures. By cutting down rotoscoping time dramatically, Electric Sheep frees up artists to focus on what truly matters—creative storytelling. Investing in such innovative solutions positions us at the forefront of a revolution that balances AI’s power with human ingenuity,”