DeepMotion
DeepMotion is a Redwood City, California-based AI company providing cloud-based markerless motion capture (Animate 3D) and text-to-3D animation (SayMotion) tools for game developers, content creators, educators, and professional studios.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2014
- HeadquartersRedwood City, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What DeepMotion does
DeepMotion is a Redwood City, California-based AI company founded in 2014 that has built a cloud-based motion intelligence platform for digital humans and virtual characters. The company operates two core products: Animate 3D, a markerless AI motion capture service that converts standard video footage into production-ready 3D animations (supporting body, hand, and face tracking plus multi-person capture), and SayMotion (launched at GDC 2024 after rebranding from MotionGPT), a generative AI text-to-3D animation platform that produces character motion from natural language prompts. The underlying "Perceptive Motion Brain" technology combines deep learning with physics-based simulation, and the platform exports to standard formats (FBX, GLB, BVH) with automatic retargeting into Unreal Engine 5 (including MetaHuman), Unity, Blender, Maya, and Roblox.
DeepMotion generates revenue through tiered SaaS subscriptions (Freemium, Starter, Innovator, Professional, Studio, Enterprise) plus API subscriptions for programmatic access. The go-to-market is product-led via a self-serve web platform with a free tier, supplemented by developer relations (Discord, GitHub), content marketing (blog, YouTube tutorials), and event presence at GDC and SIGGRAPH. Customer evidence spans indie game developers, content creators, XR/VR artists, academic institutions (Georgia State University, MIT Media Lab, UTS Animal Logic Academy), and professional studios (Corridor Digital, Memik Inc.), indicating a horizontal segmentation strategy with a long tail of small creators and growing enterprise usage through API integrations.
The company's strategic positioning is reinforced by deep partnerships across the compute and gaming stack: Samsung (Galaxy S10 AR Emoji, 2019), Epic Games (MegaGrant 2020, UE5/MetaHuman integration), Bandai Namco (strategic investor, 2023), plus technology alliances with NVIDIA, Intel, and Qualcomm for GPU/CPU/mobile acceleration. Disclosed equity funding is approximately $2.2M (Samsung Ventures, Scrum Ventures, TSVC, 2019), supplemented by undisclosed grant and strategic investment tranches, supporting a small but operationally active team of 11–50 employees that has continued product development across more than a decade.
DeepMotion firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- DeepMotion
- Legal name
- DeepMotion, Inc.
- Website
- https://deepmotion.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2014
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- DeepMotion is a Redwood City, California-based AI company providing cloud-based markerless motion capture (Animate 3D) and text-to-3D animation (SayMotion) tools for game developers, content creators, educators, and professional studios.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
DeepMotion industry classification
Industry- Product category
- AI Motion Capture Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132), Software Publishers (51321), Postproduction Services and Other Motion Picture and Video Industries (51219)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Motion Picture & Video Tape Production (7812)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Physics, Animation & Character Tech Middleware (MPAFAFAC)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- 3D Character Animation (MPAHACAB), 3D/CGI Animation Production (MPADACAB)
Keywords
Where DeepMotion is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Redwood City
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
DeepMotion business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Subscription Plans: Cloud-based SaaS subscription with tiered plans (Freemium, Starter, Innovator, Professional, Studio, Enterprise) offering different credit limits and feature access. Freemium plan for hobbyists and non-commercial use; paid plans include commercial licensing.
- API Subscriptions: Programmatic access to motion capture and animation services via API for developers and partners, with usage-based or subscription billing.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Others | Freemium - Free tier for non-commercial use |
| Subscription | Monthly | Starter - Entry-level paid plan |
| Subscription | Monthly | Innovator - Mid-tier creative plan |
| Subscription | Monthly | Professional - Advanced features for professionals |
| Subscription | Monthly | Studio - Team and studio usage |
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise - Custom enterprise solutions |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels8 records
DeepMotion product offering
Product offeringCore offering
DeepMotion provides a cloud-based AI motion capture and 3D animation platform delivered as two software products: Animate 3D converts standard 2D video footage (webcam or smartphone) into production-ready 3D character animations with markerless full-body, hand, and face tracking, while SayMotion generates lifelike 3D animations directly from natural-language text prompts. Animations export to standard formats (FBX, GLB, BVH) and integrate with Unreal Engine 5 (including MetaHuman automatic retargeting), Unity, Blender, Maya, Roblox, Avaturn, and Ready Player Me.
Product overview
DeepMotion offers an AI-powered motion capture and 3D animation platform consisting of two core products: Animate 3D (video-to-3D animation via markerless motion capture) and SayMotion (text-to-3D animation via generative AI). The platform enables democratized digital human motion creation for entertainment, social media, and the Metaverse, supporting export of animations in FBX/GLB formats for integration with major 3D software and game engines including Unreal Engine, Unity, Blender, Maya, MetaHuman Creator, and Roblox. The platform offers both freemium (non-commercial) and paid commercial licensing tiers.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- SayMotion: Text-to-3D animation platform that enables users to create lifelike animations using natural language text prompts
- Animate 3D
Products and services
- Animate 3D Cloud-based AI motion capture service that transforms standard 2D video footage (from webcams or smartphones) into production-ready 3D character animations with markerless full-body, hand, and face tracking; exports to FBX, GLB and BVH for use in Unreal Engine, Unity, Blender, Maya, Roblox and other 3D platforms. Designed for game developers, animators, VFX artists, educators and content creators.
- SayMotion Generative AI text-to-3D animation platform that creates lifelike character animations from natural-language text prompts and provides AI editing tools (Loop, Refine, Rerun, Merge, Inpainting) for refining, looping and merging animations. Targets creators who want to produce animation without manual motion capture or animation expertise.
- DeepMotion APIs (Animate 3D API and SayMotion API) REST API access to Animate 3D and SayMotion capabilities, letting developers and partners programmatically generate 3D animations from video or text inputs and embed motion capture into their own products and workflows.
Quantifiable outcome
- Generates AI-driven animation in minutes compared to traditional motion capture workflows
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use DeepMotion
Customer profileNamed customers10 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
DeepMotion technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration9 records
AI capability7 records
Feature8 records
DeepMotion partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core and strategic.
- SamsungcoreSamsung partnered with DeepMotion to integrate AI motion capture technology into Samsung Galaxy S10 smartphones, powering AR Emoji features with expressive motion capture.
- NVIDIAcoreTechnology partnership for GPU acceleration and AI computing capabilities supporting DeepMotion's motion capture and animation processing.
- IntelcoreTechnology partnership for CPU optimization and performance enhancement using Intel technologies including VTune Amplifier.
- QualcommcorePartnership to optimize motion capture technology for mobile and edge computing platforms.
- Epic GamescoreDeepMotion's Animate 3D integrates with Unreal Engine 5, supporting MetaHuman character animation and automatic retargeting.
- MITstrategicMIT Media Lab partnered with DeepMotion for AI Filmmaking Hackathon, using DeepMotion's technology to transform character animation for participants.
- Cornell UniversitystrategicAcademic partnership supporting research and development in motion intelligence and AI-driven animation.
- Unreal Engine / MetaHumancoreDeepMotion's animations can be directly imported into Unreal Engine 5 with automatic retargeting for MetaHuman characters, eliminating manual bone mapping.
- UnitycoreDeepMotion enables Unity users to create 3D animation from video with AI motion capture, ready to be imported directly into Unity scenes.
- BlendercoreDeepMotion animations can be exported and used in Blender, open-source 3D software for modeling, animation, and VFX.
- RobloxcoreDeepMotion supports Roblox for animating characters in the immersive online gaming platform.
Scale indicators2 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
DeepMotion competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Vicon: Long-standing optical motion capture systems vendor serving film, games, and research. Competes in the broader mocap category at the high-fidelity, professional tier.
- Runway: Generative AI video and creative platform that has expanded into motion/character generation. While broader in scope, Runway represents a well-funded potential competitor in AI-driven animation for creators and enterprises.
- Xsens (Movella): Established inertial motion capture and motion tracking provider serving entertainment, gaming, and industrial markets. Represents the traditional, hardware-based mocap incumbent that AI/video-based approaches like DeepMotion aim to disrupt.
Direct peers
- Rokoko: Provider of motion capture hardware (Smartsuit) and software tools for animators and game developers. Competes with DeepMotion in the indie/ prosumer mocap space, though anchored in hardware rather than purely AI/video-based capture.
- Plask: AI-powered motion capture and animation tool that extracts motion from video for use in 3D pipelines. Targets the same accessibility-first motion capture market for creators and small studios.
- RADiCAL: Cloud-based AI motion capture platform that converts 2D video into 3D animations without suits or markers. Closely comparable technology and go-to-market approach to DeepMotion's Animate 3D.
- Move.ai: Direct competitor offering AI-powered markerless motion capture from video using deep learning. Targets the same indie creator, gaming, and VFX customer segments with a similar hardware-free approach to motion extraction.
Emerging players
- Kinetix: AI-driven 3D animation platform enabling users to generate animations without expertise. Targets similar creator and metaverse use cases with generative AI for animation, overlapping with SayMotion.
- Cascadeur: AI-assisted keyframe animation tool that helps animators create realistic character motion. Adjacent to DeepMotion in that both apply AI to character animation, but Cascadeur focuses on assisted keyframing rather than video/text-to-animation.
Regional players
- Reallusion: Developer of iClone and Character Creator — 3D character animation software that integrates with DeepMotion's mocap pipeline. A neighboring rather than competing vendor with complementary products serving the same character animation market.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
DeepMotion social profiles
Digital presenceDeepMotion financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
DeepMotion leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
DeepMotion funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds3 records
Investors4 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
DeepMotion M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about DeepMotion
What does DeepMotion do?
DeepMotion provides a cloud-based AI motion capture and 3D animation platform delivered as two software products: Animate 3D converts standard 2D video footage (webcam or smartphone) into production-ready 3D character animations with markerless full-body, hand, and face tracking, while SayMotion generates lifelike 3D animations directly from natural-language text prompts. Animations export to standard formats (FBX, GLB, BVH) and integrate with Unreal Engine 5 (including MetaHuman automatic retargeting), Unity, Blender, Maya, Roblox, Avaturn, and Ready Player Me.
Is DeepMotion a public or private company?
DeepMotion is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was DeepMotion founded?
DeepMotion was founded in 2014. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is DeepMotion based?
DeepMotion is headquartered in Redwood City, United States, in the North America region.
How does DeepMotion make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Subscription Plans are the primary driver. The others are API Subscriptions.
Who are DeepMotion's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Vicon, Runway and Xsens (Movella). Direct peers are Rokoko, Plask, RADiCAL and Move.ai. Emerging players are Kinetix and Cascadeur. Reallusion is listed as a regional player.
Does DeepMotion have an API?
Yes. DeepMotion offers APIs for both Animate 3D and SayMotion products. The APIs allow developers to programmatically generate 3D animations from video or text inputs. API subscriptions are available with free trial options. Developer documentation is at deepmotion.com/doc/saymotion.
What industry is DeepMotion in?
DeepMotion's product category is AI Motion Capture Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAFAFAC, Physics, Animation & Character Tech Middleware, with a secondary code of MPAHACAB, 3D Character Animation. Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7372.