North West Investment Specialist, GC Angels, has been selected by Innovate UK to partner with it’s Immersive Technology Investment Accelerator, which aims to provide grant funding alongside private investment to creative and tech companies.
Up to £2m is available through the accelerator for UK creative and tech businesses to undertake R&D projects that enable immersive content to be created faster, more efficiently or in new ways through simultaneous grant funding and venture capital investment.
GC Angels will invest alongside Innovate UK and total project costs must be between £150,000 and £300,000. Innovate UK will provide grants up to 70% of costs dependant and business size with the remaining funds to be raised by either GC Angels or one of 10 other investment partners including major investors in this sector such a Creative England, HTC Europe, London Venture Partners and Warner Music.
The funding will support companies who require funding and finance at seed stage to drive R&D and company growth whilst providing the runway for later stage capital and equity investment in the future.
The Immersive Technology Investment Accelerator opens to companies on 20th May in London, which will be followed by a series of events across the UK. The Manchester event will take place on 4 June at The Landing, MediaCityUK.
The competition is open to all UK based businesses with GC Angels supporting businesses across the North West, a brief and further details on how to apply can be found here.
GC Angels, part of the Growth Company, offers equity investment up to £2m. In addition, the company can prepare and prequalify investments, as well as invest alongside associate Angels and Investment Partners. Since its launch in 2015, GC Angels supported investments of over £20m in 30 businesses. As part of the wider Growth Company, Immersive Tech businesses can benefit from further Access to Finance support, the Made Smarter programme through their AR/VR specialist team as well as International trade support.
Established in 2007, the Government-backed Innovate UK programme has invested more than £2.5bn in 8,500 organisations, helping them to develop and realise the potential of new ideas. This funding has helped create over 70,000 jobs and added an estimated £18bn of value to the UK economy.
Damian Mohammed, Investment Director for GC Angels, who leads this project, will sit on the judging panel at the Manchester event. He said: “The immersive tech sector is maturing at a rapid pace and businesses in this space are seeking funding to realise their big ideas. However, the sector is being underserved by the finance and investment ecosystem as it is not developing at the same rate. A fast-growing but embryonic consumer market place is driving uncertainty with investors, making funding hard to come across.
“With its Immersive Technology Investment Accelerator, Innovate UK has addressed this gap in the funding market, and we’re excited to be a part of it. The North West is home to many forward-thinking tech companies, and this competition will boost R&D in immersive technologies and help them execute their ambitions.”
