Backing a Cinematic Virtual Reality Trailblazer, Felix & Paul Studios
By Michael Yang, Managing Director
Over the last year, the cries of “there’s not enough good content in VR” have reached epic proportions. At Comcast Ventures, we’ve been addressing this pain point through our investments in NextVR, the leader in live VR broadcasting and Baobab Studios, the leader in VR animation. We have always wanted to invest in a team focused on premium cinematic virtual reality or live action, camera-shot, stereoscopic 360 video. Today, we announced our investment in Felix & Paul Studios, a cinematic VR studio based in Montreal.
Felix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphael were successful film and commercial directors before they stumbled upon Oculus in the early days. They convinced Oculus that virtual reality was not just about gaming, but could also be about immersing an audience in a new type of video experience. Throughout 2013, Felix and Paul tinkered in VR and in 2014 at SXSW, they released their first acclaimed piece entitled “Strangers- A Moment with Patrick Watson”. They’ve since gone on to premier at film festivals all over the world, received Emmy nominations, eventually winning an Emmy for Inside the Box of Kurios, a virtual reality experience created and produced by Cirque du Soleil Média and Felix & Paul. They’ve also produced cinematic VR stories for the Clinton Global Initiative, Jurassic World as well as a 12-minute piece with LeBron James, amongst others. Felix and Paul are joined by Stephane Rituit, a long-time producer and co-conspirator and Sebastian Sylwan, the former CTO of Weta Digital.
Joining Comcast Ventures in this Series A financing is LDV Partners, a cross-border venture fund focused on China, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Quebec, one of Canada’s leading institutional fund managers, and Phi Group, a Montreal-based multidisciplinary arts and cultural organization.
“We are looking forward to working closely with Comcast Ventures as we expand our studio’s production capacity and technology platform. From the moment we started engaging with them, it was clear that they shared our vision — that a combination of artistic and technological innovation can be an unparalleled force in creating extremely high quality cinematic content for this exciting new medium of virtual reality. We’re thrilled that Comcast Ventures led our Series A financing round and that we’ll be able to tap into Michael Yang’s experience as he joins our board of directors,” said Paul Raphaël, co-founder and creative director at Felix & Paul Studios.
We’re excited about the slate of content that Felix & Paul Studios is working on and hope you have a chance to see it out in the Oculus store.
To see more Felix & Paul projects, explore their site here.