• Look AI Ventures’ portfolio company Electric Sheep secured GBP 500K Innovate UK grant to develop Spotlight V3, revolutionizing AI-driven rotoscoping
• VFX Industry demands for faster, cheaper, high-quality content, making AI automation essential
• Electric Sheep’s Spotlight V2 already cuts rotoscoping time 24x, enhancing workflow, reducing costs, and freeing artists for creativity
• Spotlight V3 will expand AI tools beyond rotoscoping, including inpainting, match move, and depth solutions

This February, Electric Sheep—a portfolio startup of the well-known Prague-based VC fund Look AI Ventures (invested in Ochy recently)—got awarded Innovate UK’s Smart Grant of GBP 500K. The Smart Grant serves as a testament to Electric Sheep’s advancements in AI-driven visual effects (VFX) technology.

Electric Sheep’s co-founders Gary Palmer (CEO) and Jake Laver (CTO) met back in high school and shared a passion for computer vision and visual effects. Years of VFX experience with such companies as Netflix, Amazon, and Disney, allowed the two to identify a critical need for streamlining VFX workflows and detect an opportunity to tackle industry challenges using AI.

The startup was founded in 2018 but lay dormant until 2022, when Richie Murray joined as COO, bringing commercial expertise and a background in tech sales to complement the technical leadership. Since then, Electric Sheep has secured over GBP 1M in funding from VCs and government grants and delivered transformative solutions for leading VFX clients in Europe and internationally.

Solving the Problem of Faster, cheaper, and Better Content

The VFX industry is under pressure to deliver high-quality content faster and cheaper. For instance, one of its most labor-intensive processes, rotoscoping, requires segmenting objects or backgrounds in video to integrate visual effects seamlessly. While essential, it is slow, costly, and repetitive—making it an ideal candidate for AI-driven automation.

The Look (London) is the post-house responsible for Sex Education, Gangs of London, and Fleabag. Its CTO Mark Maltby comments: ‘If the shots have too much rotoscoping, it often doesn’t make economical sense for us to complete them. As creatives, we appreciate anything that helps us to keep as much work in house as possible.’

Electric Sheep’s team has merged AI, cloud technology, and VFX expertise to develop Spotlight V2, a breakthrough solution that automates rotoscoping at 24 times the traditional speed. This innovation reduces the time required to process one second of footage from eight hours to just 15 minutes.

‘Our ML team have devoted significant efforts to optimising inference speed as well as accuracy, while our cloud-based infrastructure enables rapid processing times for shots of any complexity and resolution,’ Mr Murray tells ITKeyMedia.

By eliminating tedious manual work, Spotlight V2 enhances efficiency, lowers costs, and empowers artists to focus on storytelling rather than repetitive tasks. As the demand for VFX continues to rise, AI-driven solutions like Spotlight V2 are transforming workflows and redefining the future of content creation.

‘A Catalyst for a New Era of Creative Efficiency’

‘Artificial intelligence is not just a game-changer for the VFX industry; it’s a catalyst for a new era of creative efficiency and innovation. As investors, we see transformative potential in companies like Electric Sheep, whose technology is set to redefine production timelines and cost structures. By cutting down rotoscoping time dramatically, Electric Sheep frees up artists to focus on what truly matters—creative storytelling. Investing in such innovative solutions positions us at the forefront of a revolution that balances AI’s power with human ingenuity,’ Look AI Ventures’ partner Angelo Burgarello states.

‘Spotlight has been a game changer indeed. Electric Sheep’s solution offers an economical and time-efficient way of preparing shots so that we can take on more work and continue to deliver a premium service for our clients,’ Mr Maltby adds.

Innovate UK is a government organization that awards its Smart Grants to as few as 2% of applicants with game-changing ideas. The GBP 500K that Electric Sheep secured will be used to develop Spotlight V3, its most advanced and fastest rotoscoping tool yet. Launching this year, V3 will revolutionize video segmentation for VFX and beyond, pushing the boundaries of AI-driven automation.

‘We’re so pleased the UK government shares our vision for innovation in the creative industry. Rotoscoping is one of many time consuming and repetitive tasks faced by artists that gets in the way of creativity. We’re focusing on the tedious parts of the job, so artists can focus on telling spectacular stories. We want to make rotoscoping so easy that VFX artists can have their shots ready in a few clicks,’ Mr Murray shares.

More Advanced Rotoscoping and More

This grant will allow Electric Sheep to build Spotlight V3, its most advanced and fastest rotoscoping tool to date. Launching as soon as this year, V3 aims to enhance the video segmentation process for VFX and beyond.

‘The next edition of our VFX platform will not only reduce processing times further still, but additionally provide higher-quality outputs, especially on traditionally more complex shots involving hair detail, significant movement etc. Plus, we’ll give artists access to an expanded toolkit as part of the Electric Sheep suite, with inpainting, match move etc. all on the horizon. The next iteration of our AI rotoscoping technology is already in the later stages of development, and the Grant is crucial to the realisation of this,’ Mr Murray expands.

Thus, not only will Electric Sheep provide unprecedented AI rotoscoping, but is in the process of developing inpainting and depth solutions as well. These will further enable the team to realise their vision of empowering creatives to tell ever more spectacular stories.

AI-driven VFX automation is transforming the industry by eliminating tedious, time-consuming tasks like rotoscoping, allowing artists to focus on creativity and storytelling. By increasing efficiency and reducing costs, AI empowers studios to push artistic boundaries, increase the quality of the content they produce, and accelerate the output at the same time. As technology advances, automation will continue to revolutionize visual effects, unlocking new possibilities for creatives.