Flavourworks has announced it has secured £3m in Series A funding.
In the funding round led by Hiro Capital, London-based Flavourworks secured £3m for its “revolutionary Touch Video Game/Movie technology” from Hiro Capital and Sky Ventures. Its the first investment in the studio for “games specialist” Hiro Capital.
Flavourworks – which was founded in 2015 by Jack Attridge and Pavle Mihajlovic to bring “interactive stories to filmed content for a global audience” – is described as a “revolutionary games studio which fuses the intensity of filmed content using real actors with the deep interactivity of narrative video games, creating a brand new genre at the intersection of movies and games”.
Flavourworks’ proprietary Touch Video technology lets players touch the screen to control the actors’ choices and “experience a personalised storyline that reflects their own decisions”. Its first title, Erica, was published by Sony Interactive Entertainment on PlayStation 4, and a mobile version is expected to “follow soon”.
“Erica merges the worlds of film and video games in a way that no one’s done before,” said studio co-founder Mihajlovic. “Our technology combines the mechanics of traditional storytelling with immersive soundtracks and next-level interactions that let you touch, feel and experience nuanced, interactive stories. This is the first time a game lets you reach out and touch a real, live-action world and have this world react to you in a meaningful way. We’re so excited to be working with our investors to help share these experiences worldwide.”
“We have invested in the Hiro Capital Fund to discover exactly the kinds of technology and talent Hiro have found with Flavourworks,” James McClurg, Director of Startup Investments and Partnerships at Sky said. “We see an exciting potential in Flavourworks’ Touch Video technology as it brings game-like interactivity to premium content. We are looking forward to supporting the company, as the technology develops and the content is produced out of Jack and Pavle’s studio, in the months and years to come.”