COMPANY

Name: UNOMI

Legal Name: Oomi, Inc.

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Founded: 2016

Founder(s): Obi Onyejekwe

Website: https://getUNOMI.com

Social Media Following:  113 Likes on Facebook  

INDUSTRY (Animation Software)

Size: $250B (2017) (Source: “MarketWatch – Animation Software Market 2019”)

Projections: $490B by 2026, (CAGR of 8.7%) (Source: “MarketWatch – Animation Software Market 2019“)

Introduction

UNOMI is a software as a service (SaaS) platform for animators and videogame developers which syncs animated character facial movements with the desired pre-recorded speech in seconds. This solves one of the biggest challenges facing animators today, as it would otherwise take an entire day to match facial twitches and linguistic syncs with conventional animation software.

The Product 

UNOMI is a subscription-based SaaS platform that automatically syncs 2D mouth poses to voice-over recordings of each character that an artist or an animator creates. UNOMI’s motion capture software gives content creators the ability to easily track human movement within their home or studio, and the intuitive user interface enables animators to navigate it smoothly and preview the results almost instantly.

The software supports a number of international languages such as English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese, among others. Once the facial movements are synced to the audio/dialogues, animators can render the final output in any of the popular rendering formats used by the animation industry, such as .MOV, PNG Sequence, TIFF sequence, TARGA sequence, etc. 

UNOMI asserts that its software eliminates the need to rent expensive motion capture studio space and equipment for animators working on projects of varying scale and budget levels. 

It also claims that using its platform enables creators to reduce the production time and budget on developing content by 30% to 75%. 

Origin and Founding Team 

UNOMI was founded in 2016 by Obi Onyejekwe, a serial entrepreneur and product specialist, who is also the company’s CEO. In the past, he has worked as a marketing specialist for large commercial and multimedia campaigns for Fortune 500 companies. He has served as the Art Director at major media and entertainment companies such as Spike TV and BET, as well as a motion designer for Turner Broadcasting, Cartoon Network, and Nickelodeon. 

Prior to UNOMI, Onyejekwe’s entrepreneurial experience came from founding Pixel Pirate Studio, a design and animation studio, in 2011, where he currently serves as the chief operating officer. He also built Nito in 2013, an app that uses facial recognition and motion capture technology to allow users to create their animated avatars. Nito was later acquired by AOL in 2016.

Performance and Trends

In 2018, UNOMI was selected by Backstage Capital for its maiden acceleration program. The company claims to work with top studios and agencies in North America and globally.