Viggle AI, a Canadian startup behind recent viral memes featuring rapper Lil Yachty, has secured $19 million in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Two Small Fish. 

The company, known for its AI-generated videos, plans to use the funds to scale operations, accelerate product development, and expand its team.

“The investment affirms our vision and empowers us to redefine the possibilities in AI-driven character animation,” Viggle AI CEO Hang Chu said in a news release. 

“We look forward to expanding the reach of our technology to an even broader audience and expanding the boundaries of creativity for everyone,” Chu added.

Viggle’s technology allows users to create controllable AI characters for memes and visualizing ideas. 

The company’s 3D video foundation model, JST-1, claims to have a “genuine understanding of physics,” setting it apart from other AI video models that often produce unrealistic character motions.

“We are building a new graphics engine with neural networks,” Chu explains the difference in an interview with TechCrunch. 

“Our model is designed to understand the structure and properties of physics, which is why it’s been significantly better in controllability and generation efficiency,” he added.

The platform offers three primary methods for creating videos: uploading an original video with a character image, combining character images with text prompts, or generating animated characters from text prompts alone. 

While the resulting videos show some imperfections, including shakiness and expressionless faces, Chu reports that filmmakers, animators, and video game designers already use the tool to visualize concepts.

Viggle’s AI Offering

Viggle provides a free, limited version of its AI model on Discord and its web app, with a $9.99 subscription option for increased capacity. 

The company also offers special access to some creators through a dedicated program and discusses licensing the technology with film and video game studios.

Viggle initially stated that training data relies on publicly available data, including YouTube videos. 

However, this admission raises potential legal concerns, as a recent investigation revealed that major tech companies have used content from thousands of YouTube videos to train AI models without creators’ knowledge or consent.

As a result, YouTuber David Millette has filed a class action lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging unauthorized use of video content for AI training. 

Per TechCrunch, a Viggle spokesperson later clarified that the company “leverages a variety of public sources, including YouTube,” while emphasizing compliance with terms of service and avoiding unauthorized video downloads.