Trioscope secures $5.25m investment from Sony, Bitkraft & others

The Liberator

US hybrid animation prodco Trioscope Studios has raised $5.25m in investment from companies including venture capital firm Bitkraft Ventures and Sony. 

Sony, through its Innovation Fund, and Bitkraft, a fund focused on gaming, esports, and interactive media, were joined by co-investors Transcend Fun, Cordillera Investment Partners and Thomas Vu/Axis Mundi Capital.

The money will allow Trioscope, the prodco behind Netflix series The Liberator, whose proprietary technique marries live-action human performance with animated environments, to expand its US and worldwide business and focus on boosting its original IP and content.

The company will also use the investment to support its enhanced animation technology toolset for global third-party creators and studios to produce content through licensing agreements. It expects to launch a new platform licensing offering in 2022 with an initial network of international studio partners.

Trioscope was formed by producers L.C. Crowley, Greg Jonkajtys and Brandon Barr last year, with Trioscope Europe launching in December 2020 as a joint venture with Polish visual effects studio Juice. Barr previously told TBI that the Trioscope technique “excels at releasing the hounds, as it were, on projects of epic scope and scale.”

The company recently finished production on the short film Night Of The Cooters, which is produced with George R. R. Martin, with Vincent D’Onofrio attached as both star and director. It is also working on an adaptation of Greg Nichols’ article The Havana Job, while other upcoming productions include as-yet-unannounced series with Netflix, Showtime and CBS Studios.

Scott Rupp, founding general partner of Bitkfraft, commented: “Trioscope pioneered a new genre of synthetic reality animation that stands out for today’s audiences and streaming platforms. Their technology leverages the cloud to lower costs, enable faster and more flexible virtual productions, and deliver epic emotional resonance by integrating live action human performance into graphically compelling 3D worlds.”

“In just a short time, our company’s vision has propelled a patented platform that fuses live-action with animation in a novel way, stoking the imagination and talent of seasoned and emerging creatives,” added Crowley. “Our partnership with Bitkraft, Sony Innovation Fund and our other investors gives us the support to further expand our tech-driven, content-rich business.”