Fix8 animates your expressions in chat, raises $3M
updated
Fix8 is a Los Angeles company that animates your expressions, letting you communicate over video live via a personalized avatar. It has just raised $3 million in a first round of venture backing. See example below (if you’re reading RSS, you’ll have to go to site).
All you need is a Web cam and you can select facial and other accessories. It manipulates your voice and gives you other editing tools. Besides video chat, it also offers IM.
Several other companies let you record greetings and messages with personalized avatars, but few offer live communication. Logitech was one of the earliest players.
With Fix8, you can chat live with your avatar. Or you can create a video, and broadcast it on social sites and IM services including AOL, MSN, Skype and Yahoo.
The company is a division of Mobinex.
The funding comes from Vickers Financial Group, a Singapore-based private equity firm
Fix8 had partnered with the Shanghai Media Group to offer something called “AuditionsTV,” where audiences can submit fix8 content for insertion into live or taped programming. Fix8 says it will soon launch a mobile edition.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
