A video game wouldn’t be very entertaining if nothing on the screen moved. The designers who create unique characters and settings are an integral part of making games engaging, as are the developers who bring those interactive elements to life through animation. As crucial as this collaboration is, the animation process is typically a time-consuming pursuit. Rive, a San Francisco-based startup, has stepped up with a fresh round of funding to help speed things along.
Two Sigma Ventures led a $10 million Series A funding round for Rive. The raise follows the company’s previously announced $4 million seed round that was led by a16z back in 2019.
Rive developed a cloud collaboration solution to help designers and developers create animated graphics that run anywhere. Its platform enables businesses to build animated interactive experiences that run fast, store small and use less memory than other design solutions, according to Rive. Companies including Google, Samsung, Duolingo and Sonos use Rive’s solution.
Normally, designers and developers work separately from one another. Designers create 2D, static images and then send those images to engineers who build interactive elements that the user will experience. Constantly sending bulky files back and forth to each other uses more time and resources than necessary, according to Rive.
Using Rive’s technology, designers can build real interactions — as opposed to mockups — without having to code. User interfaces, characters, icons and emojis are a just a handful of animations that teams can create all in one place.
Developers can also send changes to designs directly from Rive’s platform. Because of this, they get more time back in their day with each iteration.
“Developers and designers are too siloed from one another, creating inefficiencies in workflows. Our design tool bridges that gap in collaboration and streamlines building interactive content for products,” Guido Rosso, Rive’s CEO and co-founder, said in a statement. “By offering an end-to-end pipeline for design, interactivity and animation, what you build in Rive looks and behaves exactly how it will in your websites, apps and games.”
With its fresh capital, Rive will support the launch of its solution that aims to help creative teams make animations that ultimately improve the end-user experience.
