Image Metrics announced today that it has secured an $8 million financing agreement. These resources will help the company expand their marketing efforts and examine opportunities in new markets like virtual worlds and social networks.
“Our proven animation technology allows video game studios to significantly improve the time to market for their games while simultaneously reducing development costs,” commented Michael Starkenburg, Image Metrics’ CEO. “The Image Metrics process enables artists to create believable facial animation that captures the subtleties of human facial movement in a fraction of the time needed for traditional methods. Gamers are seeking increasingly realistic and immersive experiences and believable facial performances. We are now staffing up sales and marketing to take advantage of a growing base of client testimonials, awards, press and word of mouth to grow both the size of the facial animation market and our market share.
Simultaneously, Image Metrics announced an exchange offer with International Cellular Accessories. Essentially, this will make Image Metrics a publicly traded company without jumping through the usual hoops, as they will retain their company name and stock symbol.
“In addition, we are working to package our technology into a software service offering that we can deploy to customers,” added Starkenburg. “This will create a hybrid software/service business model which should expand our market opportunity and favorably impact profit margins and our future financial performance.”
