Spire Animation Studios Scores Epic Games Investment

Spire Animation Studios has closed a $20 million funding round, which includes a strategic investment from Epic Games.

The two companies will align to integrate Epic’s Unreal Engine into Spire’s feature animation pipeline, building out worlds and experiences for the metaverse.

By creating movies in Unreal Engine, Spire will be able to seamlessly port story assets—worlds and characters—into the metaverse. The first project to benefit from this is Spire’s animated feature Trouble, in collaboration with Danny McBride’s Rough House Pictures.

Epic is investing in Spire alongside existing investor Connect Ventures, an investment partnership formed by Creative Artists Agency and New Enterprise Associates. Funding will be put toward team expansion, studio technology and infrastructure build-out, as well as creative development. Epic will also join Spire’s board of directors.

“The talented team at Spire has decades of experience, and their work has captivated audiences around the world with heartfelt storytelling and inspiring characters,” said Kim Libreri, CTO of Epic Games. “They are at the cutting edge of animation, and together we will push the state of the art in metaverse entertainment.”

“Meta-distribution, where audiences engage with stories before, during and after film release, has disruptive potential,” said Spire Co-Founder and CEO P.J. Gunsagar. “Audiences will live and interact authentically and persistently with characters and worlds without having to wait years after a movie’s release. Story-living through VR, AR and metaverse experiences is the future. We’re passionate about bringing this vision to life with our movie Trouble.”