Visual effects startup VA Corp joins ranks of unicorns

Visual effects production startup VA Corporation announced Monday it received 100 billion won ($80.4 million) from private equity fund Paratus Investment Inc. 

Founded last February, VA Corp. describes itself as a one-stop virtual media platform optimized for the metaverse industry. 

The private company’s valuation is estimated to be over $1 billion – making it a unicorn. Thirteen months marks the shortest time frame a South Korean startup has gone from its launch to becoming a unicorn.

Investors say the visual effects startup has a proven track record of creating metaverse content based on three-dimensional virtual production using special effects. VA Corp. merges the physical world with computer graphics in real-time for its production of visual effects. 

Within the first five months, the company received pre-Series A funding worth 10 billion won from NHN Corp., Com2uS Holdings Corp., and LG Electronics Inc.

The funding came after the startup was able to secure proprietary technology such as virtual scouting and in-camera visual effects. 

Last year, it opened a virtual production studio dubbed VA Studio Hanam sprawled across 15,000 square meters of land in Gyeonggi Province. The new facility is for creating realistic content that can be adopted across different platforms from live commerce to movies.

Lee Sang-rok, the chairman of venture capital firm Standus Corporation, founded VA Corp. last year.

The 48-year-old is best known for founding cosmetics company Carver Korea, which has the AHC brand. Lee sold AHC to London-based global consumer goods giant Unilever for 3 trillion won.

Industry insiders say trust in the founder is behind the unprecedented funding amount in the early stage startup.

VA Corp. plans to use the fresh injection of funds to increase the size of its virtual studio in Gyeonggi Province by 10-fold and create metaverse-related products including AI humans.

Write to So Hyun Lee at y2eonlee@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.