Virtual star of Porsche ads gets real venture backing

[TOKYO] Aww, a Japanese startup whose virtual influencers have graced advertising campaigns for the likes of Porsche and Ikea has raised US$1 million in a seed round from Coral Capital.

The Tokyo-based company is building out a stable of digitally-generated celebrities and social media stars, with its Imma character commanding an audience of more than 250,000 on Facebook's Instagram. Imma, created in 2018, is a computer-generated face composited onto a photo of a real human model. Aww's other virtual models include plusticboy and Ria.

Virtual influencers came to prominence in the US last year when Lil Miquela, who has 2.7 million followers on Instagram, showed up in a Calvin Klein commercial sharing a kiss with flesh-and-blood supermodel Bella Hadid. Miquela's success has inspired a number of digital-beings companies with attempts ranging from computer-generated social media influencers to chatbots and digital companions powered by artificial intelligence. Even KFC jumped on the bandwagon with a virtual version of Colonel Sanders.

"With this paradigm shift, celebrities can be created from scratch, be given personalities, and tell stories of their own," Coral Capital founding partner and chief executive officer James Riney said in Aww's announcement. "As virtual humans have become increasingly photorealistic, the line between what is real and what is virtual has become increasingly opaque."

Japanese creators have been behind some of the most deceptively lifelike models. Saya, a virtual schoolgirl that debuted in 2015, is a product of a husband-and-wife team that made a habit of observing teenage women on the subway from behind the safety of sunglasses. Liam, a rare male character, has a deal with the Washington Wizards that has him virtually following NBA rookie and Japanese basketball star Rui Hachimura.

Most virtual influencers have stuck to still photos because animating human clothing and hair remains notoriously tricky and risks breaking the suspension of disbelief. Aww plans to use the funds to develop technologies for real-time rendering and services using higher-bandwidth 5G wireless standards, virtual and augmented reality.

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