Odyssey is delivering powerful new 3D generative AI tools to Hollywood

At DCVC, we see great opportunity in the thoughtful use of generative AI to solve real world problems. Our portfolio companies Databricks and MosaicML (the former acquired the latter last year) make accountable AI accessible to orga­ni­za­tions of every size, and Reality Defender​’s industry-leading deepfake detection platform provides protection from bad actors exploiting the sinister use of AI. Our newest investment in this space is our most purely creative: San Francisco – based Odyssey has developed AI that transforms the cost and speed at which filmmakers and profes­sional artists can create Hollywood-grade visual effects. We are proud to be partic­i­pating in the company’s $9 million seed round, announced this week.

Odyssey’s world-class team of AI scientists, computer vision and graphics experts, and visual artists are building cutting-edge tools to help creators generate, iterate, and integrate AI-powered 3D CGI into their conceptions. Odyssey’s technology is being developed expressly to satisfy the profes­sional and business demands of Hollywood, with models that provide an engine for world­building whose only limits are imaginative, while also allowing fine-grained control of each layer and element — lighting, texture, and the physics of movement — leaving what film director Zach Snyder calls the ​“squishy finger­prints” of the individual artists all over their creations. 

AI has already revo­lu­tion­ized text and still imagery generation, and clearly the next frontier is video. While the appli­ca­tions out there today that can take in simple user prompts and spit out a short video that feels super­fi­cially ​“real” are impressive, they are nowhere near the standard of tools that would be needed to truly augment the creativity of film industry profes­sionals. Rather than surrender to a future of shallow and stultifying content whose primary goal is algorithmic engagement, Odyssey is seeking to harness AI to enhance and deepen the type of artistic story­telling that lies at the heart of all great movies, TV, and video games — and to make the cost of doing so disrup­tively low at the same time. 

Good story­telling has mattered to all societies, in all ages, since the dawn of time. At a moment in history when we’re seeing a high volume of dumb and cynically generated content, Odyssey is doubling down on profes­sional creativity — putting a powerful new tool in the hands that shape our sense of our humanity.