Viggle AI, the startup of viral memes fame, just closed a successful Series A round

Viggle AI, a character-centric video generation platform that attained viral fame after users of the platform created a flurry of videos featuring Joaquin Phoenix's Joker character replacing rapper Lil Yachty onstage at the Summer Smash Festival, recently announced it has raised $19 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Two Small Fish. The funding will boost Viggle's growth by enabling the platform to accelerate product development, hire more talent, and solidify its market presence.

Since its meteoric rise to fame, Viggle has attracted a substantial user base, bringing together a 4 million member Discord community comprising everyone from professional animators, major streamers, and production studios to content creators, memesters, and hobbyists. Powered by its proprietary JST-1 model, which Viggle claims is "the first video-3d foundation model with actual physics understanding", the platform lets users mix a static character into a video of a moving person (as users did with the Lil Yachty video) or animate a static character via a text-based prompt.

Additionally, Viggle has announced several upcoming features, like being able to generate and animate characters using text prompts only, or stylize existing static characters before making them the subject of a video using text prompts. Viggle has also launched a Creator Program, where successful applicants can access a Viggle Pro subscription (typically $9.99 monthly), an additional 1,000 credits equivalent to 250 minutes of video, early access to novel features, and exclusive networking opportunities.