Those Beyond raises $1.4m to debut novel Sci-Fi game world
Those Beyond (previously Cauldron) was labelled one of FinTech’s best kept secrets when last summer it spun the gaming studio out of the fintech unicorn, Thought Machine.
Thought Machine’s Chief Design Officer, Mark Warrick, announced he was moving on after 7 years to become the CEO of Cauldron with a founding team including the award-winning creative force of Fox Rogers and BAFTA-nominated games director Matt Hyde.
What would this world-class creative team be focusing on? Well, Those Beyond revealed their hand in November and demoed an immersive Sci Fi world harnessing digital ownership that is in development. With Seedcamp’s experience having invested early in Sorare and having followed the virtual goods market for years — it was a natural match for Seedcamp to lead the oversubscribed $1.4m round with Those Beyond’s existing investors of IQ Capital and Playfair Capital joining.
Those Beyond are keeping their projects under wraps for now - Although, we can reveal that high profile team members include Matthew Newcombe, their CTO, who has been in the games industry for over 10 years with lineage at studios such as ustwo games, Rare and King where he worked on the likes of Monument Valley 2, Assemble with Care and Halo. Matthew is known in the industry for his desire to build meaningful games, this combined with the founding team’s deep passion for worldbuilding-first experiences is likely to be a potent creative combination.
Those Beyond are not short of wider industry expertise either with Alex Brunicki from Backed VC appointed as their advisor along with their strong angel support base of the likes of Kieran Hill (20VC), Carmen Alfonso Rico (Cocoa) and Vinoth Jayakumar (Molten Ventures).
Fox Rogers, Those Beyond Co-founder and Creative Director said:
“Our studio is fostering a worldbuilding-led approach which puts emotive storytelling at the forefront of the experience. It could not be better timing — new audiences are emerging that are looking for the next big digital ownership experience where players can participate and own parts of the universes they love. At Those Beyond we have a history of working in markets where our emotive art and storytelling has a dramatic impact on our products — and this project delivers on that.”
Seedcamp Partner, Sia Houchangnia, adds:
“At Seedcamp, we backed Sorare early. We know gaming will be one of the main drivers behind mainstream digital ownership adoption and are delighted to have found yet another world-class team in Those Beyond who have a strong market vision for a digital ownership in gaming niche that we have not seen to date and we are delighted to be supporting them at the start of their journey.’
About Seedcamp
Seedcamp is Europe’s seed fund, identifying and investing early in world-class founders attacking large, global markets and solving real problems using technology. The Seedcamp Nation includes over 400 startups building breakout businesses that change the way people live, interact and buy and includes publicly listed UiPath, Wise and unicorns Revolut, Hopin, Sorare, Pleo and wefox along with fast-growing businesses such as Grover, Viz.ai and Ezra. Seedcamp fast-tracks a founder’s vision and creates value through immediate access to smart capital, a lifelong community of support and a global network built upon more than a decade’s experience backing exceptional talent.
About Playfair Capital
Playfair Capital is an early-stage fund that commits to companies early and with conviction. Based in London, Playfair combines the best aspects of angel investing with a focused fund, to invest in truly ambitious founders, wherever they are in the world. Playfair takes a sector-agnostic approach and investments span deep tech, SaaS, marketplaces and B2B companies. We’ve backed the founders of more than 60 companies including Mapillary (acq. Facebook), CryptoFacilities (acq. Kraken), Omnipresent, Orca AI, Ravelin, sprout.ai, Thought Machine, Trouva and Vinehealth.
About IQ Capital
IQ Capital is the leading deeptech venture capital firm. Based in London and Cambridge, IQ Capital invests in early-stage deeptech businesses using hard-to-replicate technology in massive global markets — across sectors including software, hardware, materials, health tech and life sciences.
IQ Capital’s 50+ portfolio companies are visionaries and address some of the largest problems in the world to dominate their respective markets on a global scale and grow rapidly to become sector leaders. Our initial investments at Seed and Series A range from £0.5m to £10m, with capacity for follow-on investment up to £30m through our Growth Fund. The IQ Capital team has achieved over 20 exits, to companies including M&A to Apple, Google, Facebook, Oracle and several IPOs. IQ Capital has led over 30 investments in the last three years in outstanding companies including Thought Machine, Privitar, FNA, Paragraf, causaLens, Neurovalens, Concirrus, Fluidic Analytics, CybSafe, Nyobolt’
