Krikey

Krikey is a technology company specializing in artificial intelligence-based tools for 3D animation. Founded in 2017 by sisters Jhanvi and Ketaki Shriram, the company's primary mission is to make animation accessible to a broad audience, including those without technical expertise. The founders' journey began after their respective graduations from Stanford University, where Jhanvi earned an MBA and Ketaki completed a PhD in virtual reality. With Jhanvi's experience at YouTube and Ketaki's at Google and Facebook, they initially launched Krikey as an augmented reality (AR) gaming company. Their work in AR gaming, which included partnerships with organizations like the Ellen Fund and Conservation International, highlighted a significant challenge: the slow and resource-intensive process of creating animations. This bottleneck inspired the pivot to their current focus on developing a web-based, collaborative 3D content editor.

The company's core product is an AI-powered animation platform that dramatically reduces the time required to produce animations from days to minutes. It offers a suite of tools, including text-to-animation and video-to-animation features, which use generative AI to create 3D character animations. The platform features a browser-based 3D video editor that allows users to customize characters, change backgrounds, add lip-synced dialogue in multiple languages using AI voices, and adjust camera angles. Krikey operates on a freemium business model. It provides free access to basic features with premium functionalities available through subscription plans. For enterprise clients, Krikey offers bulk licensing of its 3D editor and custom AI model training. This dual approach serves a diverse client base, ranging from individual creators, marketers, and educators to larger organizations like film studios and gaming companies. The platform's accessibility is enhanced through integrations with major creative platforms such as Canva and Adobe Express, a move that significantly increased user traffic.

Financially, Krikey has secured significant backing, having raised $22 million as of a Series A funding round in 2020, which was led by Jio Platforms. This capital has supported the company's growth and the development of its AI foundation models, leveraging cloud infrastructure like Amazon SageMaker to power its services. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and continues to expand its offerings, aiming to empower a wider range of storytellers by breaking down the technical barriers in animation. Keywords: AI animation, 3D editor, text-to-animation, video-to-animation, generative AI, character animation, content creation platform, AR gaming, Jhanvi Shriram, Ketaki Shriram, browser-based editor, avatar creation, AI voiceover, animation tools, creative software, Jio Platforms, Canva integration, Adobe Express integration, animation for marketers, educational animation, game development tools