Gracia AI, the London company building production infrastructure for 4D Gaussian Splatting, has raised $1.7 million from investors including EWOR and a pioneer behind Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) technology. The funding positions Gracia as a fast-moving player in an industry that barely existed two years ago.

The round supports a company that has quickly expanded beyond research demos. Gracia now provides the full technical stack for creating, editing, and deploying 4D Gaussian Splatting content across extended reality (XR), visual effects, film, advertising, and gaming.

From Static Demos to Full Production Systems

When Gracia completed its initial funding in early 2024, the company focused on static Gaussian Splatting and research-stage experiments. Video splats didn’t exist yet. Over the past year, the team moved significantly beyond that starting point.

Gracia became the first to bring dynamic 4D Gaussian Splatting to standalone VR headsets, not just PC-connected devices. This made real-time playback possible without external hardware. The company also launched a VFX and computer graphics pipeline that generates revenue, a direction that didn’t exist during the previous round. Studios can now integrate 4DGS into actual production workflows rather than treating it as experimental technology.

In parallel, Gracia built a complete creative toolkit for editing, camera work, and scene manipulation through 4D Gaussian Splatting. The system combines cloud-accelerated processing with a studio environment for timeline control and creative adjustments.

A Company Born from Social Media Virality

Gracia’s origin story began when co-founder and CTO Andrey Volodin posted a technical demo on social media. Volodin previously worked as an early team member at Prisma, the photo editing app that reached over 150 million downloads.

Within hours, his 4D Gaussian Splatting clip went viral. Creators, engineers, and VFX artists contacted him asking for tools that didn’t exist yet. That response convinced Volodin and co-founder Georgii Vysotskii to start a company.

Their first concept was straightforward: “YouTube for volumetric video.” But working with creators revealed the actual problem. Distribution wasn’t the issue. Production was. No one had tools to create high-quality 4DGS content at scale. That realization redirected Gracia toward building the infrastructure the industry lacked.

End-to-End Infrastructure for Volumetric Video

Gracia now operates what it describes as the world’s first scalable system for producing and deploying 4DGS volumetric video, from raw capture through final output. The platform includes dedicated Unity and Unreal plugins for developers, while 4DGS content can be viewed through WebGPU-based 2D playback on Mac and web browsers.

The system supports standalone VR playback on Quest 3, Quest 3S, and Pico 4 Ultra, with other headsets accessible via PC VR. File sizes run approximately one gigabyte per minute, with real-time playback across devices.

Gracia’s infrastructure enables studios and developers to create photorealistic volumetric video with natural parallax, consistent motion, and detailed textures. These capabilities previously appeared only in research environments.

“Volumetric video has existed for a decade, but quality and performance limitations held it back. Gaussian splatting finally closes that gap, and Gracia brings it into production.”

Co-founder Georgii Vysotskii

Advancing Core Technology for Complex Motion

Beyond infrastructure, Gracia continues developing the underlying 4DGS technology itself. The team focuses on longstanding challenges in volumetric capture, particularly around fast and complex motion.

Earlier versions struggled with rapid movement, either requiring excessive numbers of Gaussians or producing visible artifacts. Gracia’s latest release addresses this problem. Even footage captured at 50 frames per second can now play back in ultra-smooth slow motion with minimal artifacts while preserving fine details.

“This makes 4DGS viable for high-demand use cases like sports and film,” said Anton Fonin, who leads research and development at Gracia.

Adoption Across Entertainment and Technology Sectors

Despite its youth, Gracia AI has gained traction across Big Tech companies, Hollywood studios, and Europe’s entertainment industry. The company’s 4D Gaussian Splatting technology is being tested in next-generation VFX pipelines and adopted for creative R&D at global technology companies.

Gracia powered the world’s first 4DGS runway show for fashion brand Karl Kani. The volumetric video system also runs experiences at PortAventura, one of Europe’s major theme parks.

“The quality that Gracia delivers in VR is unmatched. It’s some of the most impressive volumetric content ever experienced on XR headsets.”

Tipatat Chennavasin, General Partner at The Venture Reality Fund

Market Opportunity and Cost Reductions

More than 50 million next-generation VR and XR headsets have shipped globally. Analysts project nearly 100 million devices by mid-decade. Industries from film and fashion to sports, music, and training are adopting immersive formats. Yet a bottleneck remains: no industrial-grade infrastructure exists for 3D and 4D content creation.

“We believe the future of XR and wearable glasses requires a new type of content: photorealistic, dynamic and truly 3D. Gracia provides the underlying technology studios need to build that future.”

Co-founder Georgii Vysotskii

Gracia’s volumetric flexibility delivers substantial cost savings. Directors can bypass expensive reshoots entirely, saving $50,000 to $100,000 per avoided shoot day by moving camera control into post-production. Using 4DGS to create virtual sets saves $30,000 to $70,000 per shoot on location logistics. The technology replaces high-cost robotic camera systems, saving up to $15,000 per shot, and reduces post-production character budgets by 30% to 50%.

Origianl Creator: Ekaterina Pisareva
Original Link: https://justainews.com/companies/funding-news/gracia-ai-raises-1-7m-for-4d-video-production/
Originally Posted: Mon, 15 Dec 2025 14:08:43 +0000