Mirroring American inventor and artist Paul Budnitz’s pithy observation that “everything beautiful that we create in life requires a leap of faith”, entrepreneur Charles Yeo founded SGX-listed Vividthree Holdings nearly two decades ago on a combination of hope, trust and passion.
“In those early years, it was all about making ends meet and surviving with whatever limited choices we had at the time,” Yeo recalls.
“Like myself, my co-founders Sky Li and Jay Hong came from humble backgrounds. We thought of starting our own business together, and since we had a passion for digital entertainment, we took a leap of faith and established Vividthree.”
It was this unshakeable, shared faith that laid the foundation for Vividthree’s 19-year journey, during which it evolved from a small multimedia production company into an established digital content producer today.
“At the end of the day, you must believe, believe, believe, because ultimately, thoughts become things!” Yeo points out.
“Believing is a process of internalisation. If you believe in what you do and enjoy what you do, things will fall into place, and you will get to where you are meant to go.”
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Yeo, who is also Vividthree’s managing director, graduated from the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts with an Associate Diploma in Multimedia (Distinction) in 2000. He went on to obtain his Master of Business Administration from Murdoch University in 2017.
Continuous Evolution
Headquartered in Singapore with subsidiaries in Malaysia and China, Vividthree specialises in visual effects (VFX), animation and virtual reality (VR) for content creation and services across the digital entertainment and out-of home entertainment sectors, as well as collaborations in meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions (MICE) projects.
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Today, the company is renowned for its position as Singapore’s leading 3D animation and VFX studio with a multi-award-winning track record. In 2017, Vividthree expanded into the immersive media space with VR and augmented reality (AR) capabilities.
The Vividthree brand is involved in many popular works, including Singapore’s box-office breaking trilogy Ah Boys to Men, the SG50 Future of Us Exhibition, the NS50 Home Team parade and Train to Busan VR Tour show.
Vividthree has also secured the exclusive rights to develop a VR tour show for Peninsula — the sequel to the 2016 Korean box office hit Train to Busan — as well as intellectual property (IP) rights to the highly popular web comic Silent Horror, which has amassed more than 100 million views since February 2015.
A subsidiary of Mainboard-listed film, television and online content producer mm2 Asia, Vividthree made its trading debut on SGX Catalist in September 2018. Yeo credits Vividthree’s success today to its ethos of evolving by embracing and leveraging new technologies. “Technology is one element that we cannot avoid or neglect,” he notes.
“Vividthree was able to make the switch to digital entertainment and focus on IPs. Content is always king, and digital content production has much higher margins than if we were just carrying out contract work for customers.”
Despite the challenges brought about by Covid-19, there are many lessons to be learnt. “The pandemic emphasised the importance of digital technologies — in the ways we conduct our business as well as for our clients — and highlighted the need to have an online-to-offline presence, to reach a wider audience,” Yeo notes.
“As a result, we have expanded our business focus to include more digital content and entertainment, such as digital content IPs, and changed our modes of delivery, an example of which is ComicVid,” he adds, referring to Vividthree’s over-the-top (OTT) comic video platform that allows users to read comics as well as watch them in videos.
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Vividthree has also ventured into blockchain-related technologies, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrencies. In December 2021, it developed digital collectibles of the characters of its Silent Horror web comic for sale.
In January this year, it deepened its push into NFT gaming with an investment in Singapore-based GammaR, a platform that helps NFT game developers bring their innovations to the market.
Limitless opportunities
Sales of NFTs — ranging from cartoon apes to digital art and video clips — reached some US$25 billion ($34 billion) in 2021 as the crypto asset boomed in popularity, data from market tracker DappRadar showed.
“As part of our long-term strategy to beef up our library of IPs, Vividthree has been exploring opportunities in the fast-growing gaming sector to boost revenue streams,” Yeo says.
Vividthree’s infrastructure and expertise in content production, IP management, and ability to scale concepts into reality through MICE activities, are key drivers that enable it to leverage on the rapid growth of the global gaming industry in general, and surging interest in NFT and blockchain games in particular, he adds.
Blockchain games have enjoyed an explosion in demand, partly due to the ongoing pandemic. According to data compiled by Blockchain Game Alliance (BGA), NFT games generated US$2.32 billion in revenue in the third quarter of 2021, accounting for an estimated 22% of all NFT trading volumes industry-wide during the period, as blockchain games gathered steam.
“We want to tap into the limitless opportunities offered by blockchain technology to accelerate our expansion plans,” Yeo says.
“Our focus is to develop as a content production company, with added layers of blockchain gaming and crypto mining that would generate new revenue streams for us — this is an ongoing transformation journey,” he adds.
While growth opportunities abound, Vividthree continues to grapple with the challenges of attracting and retaining talent for its creative production processes, as well as securing strong IPs.
Given the repercussions of Covid-19 on the broader industry, which includes shrinking advertising and production budgets, there is much to keep the 44-year-old entrepreneur occupied till the wee hours. “But that’s also because I spend a lot of time reflecting on the decisions that I’ve made or the plans that have been implemented,” Yeo reflects with a laugh.
“I’m a person who always feels that things could have been done better, or thinks of how we can do things better moving forward.”
The father of two boys and a girl, aged seven to 14, always advises his children to “just do it”.
“Go ahead and try, even if you don’t think you are good at it. Pursue your dreams and dare to take that leap of faith in whatever you believe in,” he adds. “Life is too short to be afraid of failure.
Vividthree Holdings Headquartered in Singapore with subsidiaries in Malaysia and China, Vividthree specialises in visual effects (VFX), animation and virtual reality (VR) for content creation and services across the Digital Entertainment and Outof-Home Entertainment sectors, as well as collaborations in meetings, incentives, conferences, exhibitions (MICE) projects. Since its establishment in 2006, Vividthree has secured its position as Singapore’s leading 3D animation and VFX studio with its multiaward-winning track record. In 2017, the Company expanded into the immersive media space with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) capabilities.
The company website is: www.vividthreeholdings.com
kopi-C is a regular column on the SGX Research website that features C-level executives of leading companies listed on Singapore Exchange. These interviews are profiles of senior management aimed at helping investors better understand the individuals who run these corporations.
