Mixamo Debuts, Offers Online Character Animation

Mixamo debuted as a company today, announcing its intention to provide an online service for customizing and quickly creating high-quality character animation.

3-D pioneers Nazim Kareemi, who will serve as CEO, and Stefano Corazzo, who will be CTO, founded the company, which is based on research from Stanford University’s BioMotion Lab. It received $4 million in venture capital from Granite Ventures and Keynote Ventures and has a high-profile advisory board featuring members from the gaming industry.

Kareemi was the founding CEO of Canesta, which developed the world’s first CMOS 3D sensors. Corazza’s research at Stanford produced the first practical markerless motion capture system based on off-the-shelf video cameras.

The company is using technology developed in collaboration with Stanford, Toronto University and the Max Planck Institute, and employs a team of computer vision experts, 3D animators, software engineers and serial entrepreneurs.

Corazza was previously a research associate at Stanford University BioMotion Lab until 2008, developing markerless motion capture technology.