Hollywood star Tye Sheridan's start-up Wonder Dynamics, which is developing AI-powered production tools, has raised US$9 million (HK$70.2 million) in series A round financing led by billionaire Li Ka-shing's Horizons Ventures with participation from Epic Games and Samsung Next.
Existing backers Founders Fund and MaC Venture Capital returned to participate in the round, which brings the firm's total amount raised over the past eight months to US$11.5 million, including its US$2.5 million seed round raised earlier this year.
The funds will be used to expand the team of machine learning engineers and CG artists in order to expedite the development of Wonder AI Suite - an AI-driven, cloud-based content creation platform, the statement said.
Sheridan is best known for its role in the X-Men movies and the sci-fi thriller Ready Player One.
Meanwhile, Freeman FinTech (0279), which is backed by Adrian Cheng Chi-kong, said it will transform from a traditional brokerage business to focus more on financial technology innovation. It will build up a technology team in the Greater Bay Area through strategic partnerships to support small-sized financial institutions, such as hedge funds and multi-family offices, to simplify and even fully automate their core workflow.
Tye Sheridan in Real Player One. SING TAO
