Mova
Mova provides markerless facial motion capture services and technology (MOVA Contour) for Hollywood film, television, and video game production, delivering capture-to-animation services to major studios and VFX houses from its Mountain View headquarters.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2004
- HeadquartersMountain View, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingServices
What Mova does
Mova is a privately held motion capture services and technology company founded in 2004 and headquartered in Mountain View, California. Operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rearden Companies, Mova provides facial and deformable-surface capture for the entertainment industry through its proprietary MOVA Contour Reality Capture system — a markerless optical system that captures faces, hands, and cloth at sub-millimeter precision and over 100,000 polygons per scene. The technology supports 2-256 cameras at 24-120fps, syncs to SMPTE timecode, and integrates with Autodesk Maya, MotionBuilder, 3ds Max, and Unreal Engine, allowing simultaneous operation with traditional marker-based capture setups. Mova earned the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 2008 for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, validating the technology at the highest tier of Hollywood production.
The company sells two distinct revenue streams. The primary stream is professional services: end-to-end project support spanning on-set capture, CG head modeling and texturing, rigging, and final facial animation, delivered for both real-time game engine playback and cinema-grade rendering. A secondary, smaller stream is subscription hardware rental — 32-core AMD 2990WX workstations with NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti graphics, available at $250/month with a 2-month minimum commitment for real-time 3D facial capture, AR/VR, and high-performance gaming workloads. The customer base is concentrated in major Hollywood studios and VFX houses, including Digital Domain, Rhythm and Hues, MPC, Warner Bros., Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures, Disney, Paramount/Dreamworks, and Buena Vista, with named credits spanning the Harry Potter, Pirates of the Caribbean, Marvel, and Transformers franchises. The company has extended into video game production as a secondary vertical, targeting real-time facial animation for game characters.
Mova's intellectual property base is anchored by founder Steve Perlman (280+ US patents across communications, video, graphics, facial capture, and wireless power) and VP of Engineering Roger van der Laan (70+ issued US patents, co-inventor of Contour). The company has no external institutional funding, no public listing, and operates at a headcount of 11-50, reflecting its position as a focused, boutique specialty provider within the broader Rearden Companies portfolio.
Mova firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Mova
- Legal name
- Mova LLC
- Website
- https://mova.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2004
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Mova provides markerless facial motion capture services and technology (MOVA Contour) for Hollywood film, television, and video game production, delivering capture-to-animation services to major studios and VFX houses from its Mountain View headquarters.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Mova industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Motion Capture Services & Technology
- NAICS
- Postproduction Services and Other Motion Picture and Video Industries (51219), Motion Picture and Video Production (512110)
- SIC
- Services-Motion Picture & Video Tape Production (7812)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Motion Capture & Performance Capture (Body/Face, Cleanup, Retargeting) (MPADAHAC)
Keywords
Where Mova is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Mountain View
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Mova business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Motion Capture Services: First-tier motion capture services for motion picture, video game, and television production. Services include capture, modeling, texturing CG heads, rigging, and final facial animation configured for real-time game engine playback and/or cinema-grade rendering.
- Entertainment Hardware and Software Rental: Rental of high-performance workstations for real-time 3D facial capture, real-time AR/VR, high-performance gaming, and fast 3D rendering. $250/month rental with 2 month minimum.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Monthly | 32-Core/64-Thread Workstation Rental |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels1 record
Marketing channels4 records
Mova product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Mova provides state-of-the-art reality capture services for motion picture, video game, and television production. Its core offering centers on the proprietary MOVA Contour markerless facial capture system, which captures deformable surfaces such as faces, hands, and cloth with sub-millimeter precision and over 100,000 polygons per scene. The company delivers full-service project support spanning capture, modeling, rigging, and final facial animation, configured for real-time game engine playback and cinema-grade rendering, alongside hardware rentals.
Product overview
Mova LLC provides a unified motion capture platform centered on the MOVA Contour Reality Capture system. The core offering is the markerless facial capture technology, which operates alongside optional hardware rental (32-core workstations) and end-to-end production services. The company serves the entertainment industry, offering technology licensing and professional services for creating photoreal facial animations in films and video games.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- MOVA Contour: Reality capture technology for facial capture, body motion, and cloth simulation used in film and video game production.
Products and services
- MOVA Contour Reality Capture Markerless facial motion capture system that captures deformable surfaces including faces, hands, and cloth with sub-millimeter precision and over 100,000 polygons per scene. Designed for film, television, and video game production teams seeking photoreal CG characters, with compatibility for Autodesk Maya, MotionBuilder, 3ds Max, Unreal Engine, and simultaneous operation with marker-based capture rigs.
- MOVA Reality Capture Production Services Full-service production offering spanning capture through modeling, texturing of CG heads, rigging, and final facial animation, configured for real-time game engine playback and cinema-grade rendering. Targeted at film, TV, and video game productions requiring end-to-end facial animation delivery.
- MOVA Entertainment Hardware Rental — 32-Core Workstation Rental of an AMD 2990WX-based workstation (32-core/64-thread, 4.2 GHz max boost, 32GB RAM, NVIDIA RTX 2080 Ti, 4TB storage, Windows 10 Professional, Blender 3D Creation Suite) for real-time 3D facial capture, AR/VR, high-performance gaming, and fast 3D rendering at $250/month with a 2 month minimum commitment.
Quantifiable outcome
- Sub-millimeter precision in facial capture
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use Mova
Customer profileNamed customers11 records
Segments2 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
Mova technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Feature4 records
Mova partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
One partnership is on record.
- Rearden CompaniescoreMova is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rearden Companies, incubated by Rearden in 2004 to provide motion capture services and develop motion capture technology.
Scale indicators4 records
Recent moves7 records
Expansion highlights4 records
Mova competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Dynamixyz: Dynamixyz provides facial motion capture services and animation software (Performer) for film, games, and ads. It is one of MOVA's closest direct competitors, offering both capture services and retargeting tooling similar to Contour.
- Cubic Motion: Cubic Motion (now part of Epic Games) delivers real-time markerless facial performance capture technology, used to drive Unreal Engine-based digital humans. It directly overlaps MOVA's Contour capability and engines-of-the-future play.
- 4DViews: 4DViews provides volumetric video and high-fidelity facial capture systems that compete with Contour for film, VFX, and live performance applications.
- Organic Motion: Organic Motion provides markerless motion capture systems (OpenStage) used for full-body and facial animation in entertainment and research. It competes in the same markerless capture category as MOVA's Contour.
- Faceware Technologies: Faceware Technologies builds marker-based facial motion capture hardware and software, including the Faceware Live and Faceware Retargeter suites. It directly competes with MOVA's Contour system for facial performance capture in film, games, and TV production.
- Di-O-Matic: Di-O-Matic develops facial motion capture retargeting and rigging tools (e.g., Facial Studio) commonly bundled with marker-based capture pipelines. It overlaps directly with MOVA's retargeting and rigging service offering.
Emerging players
- RADiCAL: RADiCAL is an AI-driven 3D motion capture startup using single-camera video to produce full-body and facial animation. It is an emerging threat/adjacent to MOVA's markerless capture approach at potentially lower cost.
Broad incumbents
- Vicon Motion Systems: Vicon is the largest incumbent in optical motion capture for body and facial performance in film, games, and life sciences. While broader than MOVA's facial-only focus, it competes head-on for high-end capture budgets.
- OptiTrack (NaturalPoint): OptiTrack produces high-precision optical mocap cameras and software used in film, games, and virtual production. It is a broad incumbent competitor to MOVA's specialized facial capture service.
- Industrial Light & Magic (ILM): ILM operates a leading in-house facial performance capture pipeline (ILM StageCraft) and is a major studio customer for mocap tech. It overlaps with MOVA as both a customer of third-party capture tech and a developer of proprietary capture capabilities.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Mova social profiles
Digital presenceMova financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Mova leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
Mova funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Mova 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 Mova
What does Mova do?
Mova provides state-of-the-art reality capture services for motion picture, video game, and television production. Its core offering centers on the proprietary MOVA Contour markerless facial capture system, which captures deformable surfaces such as faces, hands, and cloth with sub-millimeter precision and over 100,000 polygons per scene. The company delivers full-service project support spanning capture, modeling, rigging, and final facial animation, configured for real-time game engine playback and cinema-grade rendering, alongside hardware rentals.
Is Mova a public or private company?
Mova is a private company. It is classified as corporate owned and is currently operating.
When was Mova founded?
Mova was founded in 2004. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Mova based?
Mova is headquartered in Mountain View, United States, in the North America region.
How does Mova make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Motion Capture Services are the primary driver. The others are entertainment Hardware and Software Rental.
Who are Mova's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Dynamixyz, Cubic Motion, 4DViews, Organic Motion, Faceware Technologies and Di-O-Matic. RADiCAL is listed as an emerging player. Broad incumbents are Vicon Motion Systems, OptiTrack (NaturalPoint) and Industrial Light & Magic (ILM).
Does Mova have an API?
No public API is recorded for Mova.
What industry is Mova in?
Mova's product category is Motion Capture Services & Technology. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPADAHAC, Motion Capture & Performance Capture (Body/Face, Cleanup, Retargeting). Its NAICS code is 51219 and its SIC code is 7812.