MOVIN, a South Korean startup developing AI-powered motion capture devices, has raised 4 billion won (approximately 400 million yen, $2.7 million USD) in a pre-series A round of funding, which the company will use to expand its offering of 3D motion data for humanoid robots.
The round was led by South Korean venture capital firm Atinum, with participation from NAVER D2SF, NAVER’s corporate venture arm, DSC Investment and its accelerators Schmidt and Krew Capital. MOVIN did not disclose the valuation of the round.
"3D motion data is essential for AI to understand human movement and behavior. Demand for this data is expected to grow not only in the entertainment sector, such as VTubers and games, but also in the robotics and healthcare sectors," NAVER D2SF's Yang Sang-hwan said in a statement announcing the investment on March 26.
Based in Seongnam, south of Seoul, MOVIN was founded in 2023 by a group of researchers specializing in 3D human motion at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea's top science and engineering university.
MOVIN's flagship product is an AI device for motion capture called "MOVIN TRACIN," which uses LiDAR, a sensor used in the field of autonomous driving. Vicon's optical system is widely used in this field, but MOVIN claims that TRACIN costs about one-tenth of existing systems and installation time is reduced to five minutes, compared to the conventional two hours.
TRACIN has received orders from more than 50 game studios, VTubers, and entertainment companies in 11 countries, mainly in the US, South Korea, and the UK.
MOVIN recently unveiled TRACIN at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. "Attendees who saw our device were amazed at how high-quality motion and low latency could be achieved in a single device," said Choi Byeolli, co-founder and CEO of MOVIN. Choi previously worked at Zepeto, NAVER's metaverse platform.
MOVIN plans to open an office in Los Angeles later this year, where it has many clients in the gaming industry. "TRACIN is already integrated with game engines such as Unity, Unreal, Maya, and Blender. We have our own plugins so that customers can easily live stream TRACIN motion data into game engines," Choi explained.
Games that use motion capture technology include Epic Games' Fortnite, Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed, and Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto.
Using data for humanoid robots
Earlier this month, MOVIN established its own studio to collect high-quality 3D motion data to support the development of AI-powered humanoids. "The next frontier for AI will be 3D motion data. Motion capture is the only way to obtain high-quality 3D motion data, and MOVIN TRACIN is the only system in the world that can efficiently acquire high-quality 3D motion data in large quantities," said Choi.
As AI becomes more popular, so too is interest in robotics, with Tesla working on a humanoid robot called "Optimus," and Samsung strengthening its foothold in the AI-powered robotics space by acquiring additional shares in KOSDAQ-listed Rainbow Robotics earlier this month for approximately $180 million.