It’s never been easier to create and publish art than it is now, and if you believe the companies building tech around AI, the production process is going to get even more efficient. That’s especially the case with video production, with companies of all sizes using large language models to build tools that let you whip up decent quality videos and animation with a few prompts and actions.

Popular tools in this space include Google’s Veo 2, OpenAI’s Sora, Runway, Luma AI, and Shanghai-based Hailuo. Now, a South Korean startup called Cinamon is ramping up efforts to claim a part of this burgeoning market — it recently raised a $8.5 million Series B round to continue building its animated video generation platform “CINEV,” slated to be launched in beta in the first half of 2025. Altos Venture, an existing backer, as well as Saehan Venture Capital invested in this round.

Cinamon’s pitch is that its platform provides a video generator that can let you build 3D environments, direct scenes and actions, place characters, edit camera angles, and more — all with text prompts and sliders.

According to its CEO Doosun Hong, the company’s approach fundamentally differs from existing AI video generators, which create videos by generating pixels using text, images and videos as reference materials. In contrast, CINEV combines a 3D asset library, AI motion generation, and a filmmaking-focused large language model to first construct 3D scenes complete with characters and elements, and then lets you edit them using its suite of video production and editing tools.

“Our approach enables easier direction and editing without consistency/physics issues, making it particularly suitable for longer-form content like films and dramas,” Hong said. “We envision CINEV to be complementary to existing AI video tools, potentially enabling new workflows where CINEV’s output could serve as high-quality reference material for other AI video platforms.”

Cinamon started life in 2019 as Cinamon Games, a subsidiary of content production firm Vonvon. Cinamon initially set up a JV with NAVER WEBTOON, a Korean digital storytelling platform, to create Maybe, an interactive storytelling app. Facing growing data privacy concerns, Vonvon merged with Cinamon Games later in 2019 to focus solely on storytelling in the social content space.

While its competitors like Crazy Maple Studio started offering animated interactive story apps, fiction apps, storytelling apps and short-form videos, Cinamon instead chose to focus on creating 3D animation tools that could speed up and scale animation production for content creators and studios. Even though it cost more investment than tools for 2D content, they saw greater scalability potential.

In 2022, the startup began building its 3D animation platform, and later integrated AI features to enhance production efficiency. In September that year, South Korean gaming company Krafton, Naver Z (a unit of Korean internet giant Naver), and SNOW, (a camera app run by Naver), invested $10 million in Cinamon’s Series A.

Going forwards, Cinamon plans to use its investors’ IPs and 3D assets to bolster its offering. Krafton has substantial intellectual property and 3D assets used in its Battleground games, while Naver Z operates the Zepeto metaverse platform. Cinamon says CINEV can help extend these IPs beyond gaming by enabling content creators to use these IPs, and potentially drive user acquisition for Krafton and NaverZ. Cinamon also entered Nvidia’s startup accelerator, Inception, last August.

“Our potential users include comic, manga, webtoon artists, web novel writers, game developers, video creators and traditional animators looking for easier workflows,” Hong said. “In 2025, we plan to focus on customers [ranging] from individual creators to content IP companies looking for easier, faster, cheaper ways to create Anime, VTuber, and cinematic video game content.”

Cinamon plans to use the new capital for hiring more AI engineers and for R&D. The startup has a team of 60 staff with expertise in 3D graphics, AI, gaming, and content production. This Series B brings its total capital raised so far to $18.5 million (25 billion KRW).