Latest news with #EdUlbrich
Time of India
14-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Moonvalley raises $84 million to bolster AI video tools
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Artificial intelligence research company Moonvalley has raised $84 million more in a funding round led by existing investor General Catalyst, it said on Monday, a week after releasing its first video AI heavyweights including OpenAI and Alphabet are looking to get a leg-up in the lucrative entertainment industry, as film studios seek to use generative AI to speed up content creation and cut video and image generation tools have also led to lawsuits by major film studios against AI companies, accusing them of copyright infringement and said the investment will help it meet enterprise demand, expand content library and build features that partners have requested. CoreWeave , Khosla Ventures and YCombinator also invested in the last week released its first licensed AI video model for professional month, visual effects veteran Ed Ulbrich, who worked on films such as "Titanic" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," joined Moonvalley as head of strategic growth and company had raised $70 million in November last year, bringing the total funding to $154 million."Our relationship provides Moonvalley with access to advanced compute resources - including the latest GPU systems," Brannin McBee, cofounder and chief development officer for CoreWeave, said.
Yahoo
14-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Moonvalley raises $84 million to bolster AI video tools
(Reuters) -Artificial intelligence research company Moonvalley has raised $84 million more in a funding round led by existing investor General Catalyst, it said on Monday, a week after releasing its first video AI model. WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Tech heavyweights including OpenAI and Alphabet are looking to get a leg-up in the lucrative entertainment industry, as film studios seek to use generative AI to speed up content creation and cut costs. But video and image generation tools have also led to lawsuits by major film studios against AI companies, accusing them of copyright infringement and plagiarism. Moonvalley said the investment will help it meet enterprise demand, expand content library and build features that partners have requested. CoreWeave, Khosla Ventures and YCombinator also invested in the round. CONTEXT Moonvalley last week released its first licensed AI video model for professional production. Last month, visual effects veteran Ed Ulbrich, who worked on films such as "Titanic" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," joined Moonvalley as head of strategic growth and partnerships. The company had raised $70 million in November last year, bringing the total funding to $154 million. KEY QUOTE "Our relationship provides Moonvalley with access to advanced compute resources – including the latest GPU systems," Brannin McBee, co-founder and chief development officer for CoreWeave, said. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
New Video-Generating AI Trained 100 Percent on Public Domain Films
Few tech products have been as broadly contentious as video-generating artificial intelligence. These complex algorithms, which cleave millions of datapoints together into seconds-long gobs of video, are notoriously trained on proprietary material, leading to widespread ethical and legal concerns. (That's before we even mention how much energy it takes to synthesize an AI video.) Tech billionaires tend to argue that this is simply the way things need to be — if you want AI, we need to feed it copyrighted books, music, and video. However, one group of AI researchers is working to prove that argument wrong. Moonvalley is a Los Angeles-based AI startup offering a "3D-aware" video synthesis model which it claims is 100 percent trained on public domain films. The startup's flagship product, Marey, debuted in a limited run back in March. It's now out and open to the public, TechCrunch reports, making use of a credit-based system, which is typical of most AI video software. The company is drawing the attention of big names in the film world, like Ed Ulbrich, a VFX artist and producer who worked on movies like "Titanic," "Benjamin Button," and "Top Gun: Maverick." Moonvalley hired Ulbrich to liaison with film studios back in June, a role he was drawn to by the company's "clean model," as he calls it. Ulbrich was previously down on generative AI, but says Moonvalley's approach helped change his mind. "I do think a key thing for me which was the game-changer and why I was just compelled is that at its core the idea of [Moonvalley's] clean model of an ethically sourced, ethically trained, a legit, proper thing," Ulbrich told Deadline in an interview. "No stolen pixels, no scraping of the internet. It's done in a great way. And it is so important that it happened." Similar projects have been launched in other mediums. In June, a team of over two dozen AI researchers trained a large language model (LLM) on openly licensed or public domain data, proving that it doesn't take millions of stolen books to build an AI chatbot. It was admittedly a ton of work, with the team combing through over eight terabytes of data — roughly equal to about 1,685,461 Bibles — once to format everything, and then again to double-check the copyright status of all the material. The result was an LLM that more or less stacked up to Meta's Llama 1 and 2 7B, which are admittedly a few years old at this point, but impressive nonetheless. While it remains to be seen if Moonvalley's data truly was publicly licensed, as they claim, it could offer a strong rebuttal to big tech's narrative of data shortages and necessary plunder. More on generative AI: "Indie Rock Band" That's Clearly Using AI Claims That "We Never Use AI"
CNA
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNA
Visual effects veteran Ed Ulbrich joins AI company Moonvalley
LOS ANGELES :Visual effects veteran Ed Ulbrich, who worked on such films as "Titanic" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Top Gun: Maverick," has joined artificial intelligence research company Moonvalley as head of strategic growth and partnerships. Ulbrich will work to broaden the company's relationships in Hollywood and collaborate with Moonvalley's studio arm, Asteria Film, to promote adoption of its technology. He said in an interview he sees parallels between the rise of generative AI and the birth of computer-generated imagery, which revolutionized visual effects in film decades earlier. "A lot of people worried we were going to be getting rid of jobs, so I've seen this before," Ulbrich said. "By the way, history will show hundreds of thousands of jobs were created from that bloom in technology." Moonvalley is one of several artificial intelligence companies looking to establish a foothold in Hollywood. The company has looked to position itself as respectful of copyright, using only licensed works used to train its AI video model, Marey. The unauthorized use of film and television libraries has become a recent flashpoint, leading two major Hollywood studios to file a lawsuit against another AI company, Midjourney. 'What drew me to Moonvalley is their respect for the craft, their use of clean, licensed data, and their focus on empowering creators," Ulbrich said. Ulbrich has more than three decades of experience in visual effects, with more than 50 film and television and 500 commercial credits. He also helped pioneer live digital human performances with a holographic projection of the late rapper Tupac Shakur at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2012. Prior to joining Moonvalley, Ulbrich served as chief content officer and production president at Metaphysic, a generative AI company best known for technology used to age and de-age actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in the movie "Here." That company was acquired in February by DNEG Group. He also held senior roles at Deluxe and Digital Domain, where he served as CEO.
National Post
18-06-2025
- Business
- National Post
Moonvalley Hires VFX Trailblazer Ed Ulbrich to Lead Strategic Growth in AI-Powered Entertainment
Article content LOS ANGELES — Moonvalley, an AI research company building foundational AI video models and tools trained exclusively on licensed content, today announced the appointment of visual effects industry veteran Ed Ulbrich as Head of Strategic Growth & Partnerships. Article content Article content In this role, Ulbrich will help shape the company's broader growth strategy while deepening Moonvalley's relationships across studios, brands, agencies, and creative communities. He will also collaborate closely with Moonvalley's studio arm, Asteria Film Co., to accelerate adoption and integration of its technology within professional filmmaking communities and workflows. Article content Ulbrich brings over 30 years of experience driving innovation at the intersection of storytelling, production, and technology. His credits include some of cinema's most ambitious films including Top Gun: Maverick, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Titanic. He also produced the sci-fi epic Ender's Game and helped pioneer live digital human performances with the now-iconic 'Tupac Shakur hologram' at Coachella. Article content Most recently, Ulbrich served as Chief Content Officer and President of Production at Metaphysic, where he worked with major studios, streamers, talent, brands, agencies, and labels to integrate generative AI into high-end production and post. Over three decades, he has led innovation in visual effects across film, TV, streaming, advertising, music videos, and live entertainment. Beyond features, he has delivered VFX for more than 500 commercials for global brands, earning honors including the Cannes Lions Titanium Award. He held senior roles at Deluxe and spent two decades at Academy Award-winning Digital Domain—co-founded by James Cameron, Scott Ross, and Stan Winston—where he also served as CEO. Article content The announcement reflects Hollywood's evolving relationship with AI technology. Following industry strikes partly centered on AI concerns, studios are seeking partners who can deliver professional tools while respecting creators' rights. Moonvalley's approach of building models exclusively from licensed content directly addresses these concerns. Article content 'From his pioneering work on 'Benjamin Button' to leading AI adoption and integration at Metaphysic, Ed knows how to turn innovative technology into tools that actually work for filmmakers at scale,' said Naeem Talukdar, Co-Founder and CEO of Moonvalley. 'He knows what it takes to earn the trust of filmmakers and how to bring transformative technology into their workflows. We're thrilled to have someone with his expertise and relationships help us bring this technology to the studios and creators who will define its future.' Article content Ulbrich's appointment follows Moonvalley's launch of Marey, the first high-quality AI video model trained exclusively on licensed content. Named after pioneering cinematographer Etienne-Jules Marey, the model proves that powerful generative AI can be built without exploiting creators' work – something tech giants have claimed is impossible. Article content 'I've spent my career pushing the boundaries of how technology serves storytelling,' said Ulbrich. 'What drew me to Moonvalley is their respect for the craft, their use of clean, licensed data, and their focus on empowering creators without compromise. They're solving the right problems the right way, and that's exactly what the industry needs right now. This is the kind of company that can actually change how films get made, and I'm all in.' Article content Hollywood is at a critical crossroads with generative AI. The technology could slash production costs and democratize high-quality content creation, but adoption has been slow over legal concerns about training data and tools that fall short of professional standards. Moonvalley's clean-data approach and focus on filmmaker needs position it to break through these barriers. Article content About Moonvalley Article content Moonvalley is an AI research company building next-generation models and tools for creative professionals. The company brings together talent from DeepMind, Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, and leading entertainment companies, unified around advancing visual intelligence. Through partnerships with film studios, production companies, and brands, Moonvalley is proving that powerful generative AI can be built while respecting artists' and creators' rights. Article content Article content Article content Article content Article content
